The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic
by alidazzles
Summary: Katniss Everdeen is about to be thrust into the vicious Hunger Games to save her sister. Big freakin' deal. Those Capitol hacks have got nothing on snarky, trash-talking, take-no-prisoners Katniss. They had better watch out.
1. Chapter 1

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 1**

I open my eyes the morning of the Reaping. Hello, cruel world. The sun is streaming through the window, Prim's bag-of-bones pet cat is howling, curled up at the foot of my bed. I shift the blanket, dropping it off the side. It hisses. Fuck you. Prim usually sleeps with me because my mother sleeps in the only other bed and the floor is unappealing, but she isn't beside me when I reach for her. If she expects me to drag myself around the house looking for her, she's out of luck. I hope the little prick is having nightmares.

My mother snores in her own bed, effectively dead to the world. I look at the curve of her cheek against the pillow. Objectively, I suppose she could be considered beautiful, but she's mostly just a hag.

I slip out of the house early, walking through the streets of my part of District 12. We call it the Ghetto, after the ancient communes of low-income wenches we study in history class. The houses are grey, as are the cobblestones and tree branches. Coal dust covers everything. Basically, I live in a ticking firebomb.

I look both ways before sliding under the fence which surrounds the district. It's supposed to be electrified at all times, but this is the Ghetto, and - like in those ancient communes - our law enforcement consists of a team of drunk dirty cops. The guy who mans the fence is currently passed out at his post.

I let out a deep breath once I've cleared the fence. I'm in the woods. I'm technically breaking district law, I feel so badass.

My bow is stiff in my hands, my sheath of arrows fastened over my shoulder. I know all about hunting. My father taught me everything when I was young, before he had the brilliant idea to smoke reefer before his shift in the coal mine one day, and then to attempt to light another joint while inside. He was completely blown to bits in the resulting explosion. There was nothing even to bury, except for his pipe, which was recovered by the rescue team shortly thereafter. Five years later, I still wake up screaming at him to put that shit out, say no to drugs, and live above the influence.

People are so hungry in the Ghetto that I'm sure they'd be out here hunting with me if they weren't all pussies. Total sheep. Perhaps it's because they don't have the proper tools, like I do. My father made my bow by hand, long ago. If he hadn't been such a dumbass, I would think back on fond memories every time I used it. Instead, I shoot something small and defenseless, and mutter bitter nothings about District 12.

I hear a twig snap and look up. Before me stands my best friend Gale. The one person who understands me. Sex God Gale, with his muscles and stunning abs. I smile when I see them. Gale says I never smile except when I see those abs.

"Hey, Catnip." My name is Katniss, but Gale likes to tease me about my father's doped-out demise. Any other day, I would have a hearty chuckle with my buddy, whose father also died in that mine explosion, but not today. Not when the Reaping is this afternoon at two. "Look what I stole." He holds up a loaf of fresh bread. It must have come from the windowsill of Mellark's Bakery.

I smile. "How'd you get this one?" I ask.

"I went by for a trade, but the old man wasn't watching, so I grabbed that sucker. He had it coming. That guy's a tool, and not even a sharp one."

"I don't know," I nudge him, chuckling. "I've always fancied me an older man."

Gale makes a face, taking a bite of the loaf. It's soft, unlike the Ghetto castoffs we usually get. "I almost forgot!" He throws me a hunk of bread. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds-"

"-be _ever _against your enemies!" I finish in that awful Capitol accent. We laugh, because those hacks in the Capitol are funny as hell. No, stupid reader. We laugh because this is the only small joy we have in our miserable lives. Duh.

I study Gale as we eat. With his dark hair and grey eyes, he looks just like me. I sometimes suspect he is my illegitimate brother, but I keep my mouth shut so I can still ogle him. I never thought I belonged in my own family, with my mother and Prim being blonde with blue eyes. My father and I, however, did look alike. He and my mother met in high school when he tried to sell her dope, which is silly because her family owned an apothecary shop which sold nothing but dope. I suppose she must not be a total shrew, if my father married her. But then, she did let me and Prim starve these last five years, so nevermind.

When the food is gone, Gale and I settle back in a nook in the rocks and make out. My tongue is all over those abs. They ripple in response. I wish I could kiss those abs all night, but the Reaping is fast approaching. Sucks.

"We could do it, you know," Gale whispers.

"Do what?" I ask, distracted by his chest.

"Ditch our starving families and live in the woods, making gorgeous babies named after flowers and roots, and never looking back at this horrible place."

The idea is so beautiful, it glows inside of me. But it can never be. Our lives are so tragic. I place a finger against Gale's squirrel-flavored lips and tell him as much.

We spend an awkward hour or so fishing by the lake. Trying to catch something decent for tonight. After the Reaping, everyone gets hideously drunk, eats fish, and celebrates. The Schadenfreude Celebration, we like to call it. Or - Hey, At Least My Kid's Not Going To Get Gutted On TV, _Suckers_.

On the way home, we pass a girl in town. She's called Madge, but we all call her Vadge when she isn't around. If Gale and I had a list of the snotty bitches in District 12, she'd be right at the top. She's the mayor's daughter, so she lives in a nice house with clean floors and maids she isn't forced to eat when the food runs out and it's too cold to hunt one winter. Not that this has ever happened to me.

Madge flinches as we walk by. I throw her a dark look. Gale gives her both his middle fingers. Madge runs off.

"God," I scoff. "She's always so rude when we're around. What'd we ever do to her?"

Gale shrugs, handing me half of our catch as we part ways. "Haters are going to hate, my friend. Go make yourself pretty for the Reaping." He waves me off.

"See you in the square," I say.

"Wear something slutty," he says flatly.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 2**

At home, I find that Prim has returned from wherever she snuck off to last night. About time, too. It's one-thirty in the afternoon and her clothes are all wrinkled and her lipstick is all smudged. Kind of a slut. Mother would probably have something to say about her twelve-year-old daughter sneaking off to all-night Ghetto parties and returning looking like a low-budget porno, but my mother is an unobservant shrew. Prim throws me a smirk when Mother gasps at my woods-worn clothing. Prick.

I reach my room and see that Mother has left a beautiful new blue dress on my bed. We never have new things around here. The shrew is trying to buy my love again. I dress quickly and let her fix my hair. Once I'm sure that I look hotter than Prim, I am satisfied.

As I smooth out Prim's blouse, I see that her eyes are rimmed with red and she's sniffling. She must have found Dad's old box of dope. Well, we all deal with the Reaping in our own way. Her shirt has come untucked in the back again. I sigh.

"Fix your clothes, Prim. You look like a trashy duck."

Prim giggles and gives me a small, "Quack."

God, she is completely stoned.

xx

Town square is crawling with children. We arrive fifteen minutes before the show. Cameras rove around the crowd, and I give them sexy looks as they pass by. A group of Peace Cops are signing people in, making sure no one chose this particular afternoon to cuddle up on the couch and finally get around to watching all those TiVo'd episodes of _Mad Men_. They arrested a man for that three years back. They paraded him through town in his _jammies_. Humiliating.

So we children all stand at the center of the square behind velvet ropes while our families watch from the sidelines. It's like middle school graduation all over again, except at the end of this, two kids are going to be carted off to the Capitol for primping and then, like, decapitation.

Some of the audience members scan the crowd, getting a good look at each kid, betting on which will get picked. Apparently, people will gamble on anything. I could snitch them out to the Peace Cops if I really wanted to, but then I could be executed for hunting in the woods all the time. So I keep my damn mouth shut.

It's Standing Room Only in town square by the time the show starts. There's a big stage set up in front of the Injustice Building, with a podium and a microphone, though I doubt it's necessary. You could hear a pin drop out here. There are also two large glass balls on a table. Inside, they both have tiny slips of paper with our names on them, one of which will be drawn from each to decide our fate. You'd think that after seventy-three of these things, they'd have come up with a more impressive, complex system, but I suppose they could care less about our entertainment. I mean, gumball machines can be more exciting than the Reaping Balls.

On stage sit Mayor Undersee, his crazy-ass wife, and his snotty bitch daughter Madge. Besides them sits Effie Trinket. With her pink hair and green suit and ever-bubbly personality, she is the gold standard of Capitol hacks. Dumb bitch to the very core.

It is exactly two when the mayor steps up to the podium to read the history of Panem, which starts with _"Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away" _and ends with _"Amen"_. Apparently, our fair continent was destroyed by the terrifying monster god Global Warming, who didn't stop screwing things up until we were left with Panem and a bunch of crazies running it. Then one day, the people began to realize that the hacks in the Capitol were pretty freakin' dumb and tried to rebel. _Tried_. We all lost and District 13 was bombed to the ground in a gesture similar to repeatedly kicking a small child even after he's stopped breathing. And, in case that didn't teach us a lesson, they passed new laws and started the Hunger Games. The Starvelympics. The big fat Fuck You to the people of Panem.

Here's how it works: each district picks one girl and one boy to send to the Capitol. For a few days we dress them up and play _Big Brother 6_ with them, and then we fling them into an arena to fight each other until they're all dead. Except for one kid, the winner, who gets to come home and live a life of luxury as the poster child for PTSD.

Aside from getting to see kids I don't like being drowned and impaled and stuff on TV, it kind of sucks. Hard.

"…and so, with Han and Luke out of the dating pool, it is believed that Leia went on to become a Jedi herself, following in the footsteps of her brother…" the mayor closes his speech, which - now that I think about it - doesn't make any sense, and goes on to list the past victors of District 12.

Haymitch, our only living victor, is drunk as a skunk. Sitting on a trunk. Thinking he's a monk. I am so jealous of him. The mayor looks peeved. Perhaps he is also jealous.

Effie Trinket rises to the podium, smiling like an heiress and waving her arms around like an idiot. "Happy Hunger Games!" she trills like it's fucking Christmas. "And may the odds be _ever _against your enemies!" She rambles on about what a nice little district we are when everyone knows she said it was a shithole on her blog last week. I tune her out until I see her go for the Reaping Balls.

She has trouble choosing a name because of her cheap green gloves, so I pick at my nails as I wait. My breathing is shallow, and I'm getting nervous. I don't want it to be me.

Pickmadgepickmadgepickmadge...

Effie retrieves a slip of paper, turns it upside down, and reads out the name.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

Oh shit_. _Are you _fucking_ kidding me? That little prick Prim just jammed a fork in my whole life. I want to snap her neck and eat her right now, but she's looking back at me with those beady duck-eyes, and my mother looks all sad and stuff. _Shit._

"I volunteer," I groan in a loud voice, making my way up to the front of the crowd. "I volunteer as tribute!"

I volunteer for your stupid death games. Ugh. This is just not my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 3**

When I was very young, before I met Gale but after the dadsplosion, I was up in a tree, reaching over a limb to get a better shot at a wild turkey below. I lost my purchase on the wood as I released the arrow and fell ten feet to the ground. The turkey got away. As I lay in the grass for hours, body aching and eyes streaming, I remember feeling frustrated to be unable to move, sad for all the pain, and - more than anything - really fucking annoyed.

That's how I feel now, as Effie stutters something about volunteer protocol. I mean, really? Prick Duck Prim has never had to work a day in her life. Prick Duck Prim has only ever had three responsibilities: to sit there, look pretty, and _not be chosen at the Reaping_. And she couldn't even do that!

The mayor rebuts Effie's comment, calling me up to the stage. "Let her come forward."

Prim sniffles beside me, and I realize she's crying. Her face is all red and puckered and snotty. I shudder and rip my hand out of hers, that's some nasty shit. She pulls at my dress when I step away. "No, Katniss! No! You can't go!"

"Prim, let go," I order, jamming my palm into her face. Oh, _ugh._ She's leaking on my fingers. In a lower voice, I whisper, "Let go, you fucking duck."

Her lips press together into a pout, but her fingers release the fabric of the dress. Gale has gathered Prim into his arms, holding her away. I give him a look that says, _Shoot her later_, but he probably thinks it's an _I love you_ or something, because his gaze is all intense and shit. I wonder if he's naming our kids in his head as he carts Prim over to my mother.

I take a deep breath and climb the steps.

"Well, bravo!" gushes Effie Trinket, and I wonder if gooey bullshit just tumbles out of her mouth all the time. "That's the spirit of the Games! What's your name?"

I swallow the snide comment sitting on my tongue. "Katniss Everdeen," I announce, as if she didn't announce it herself all of twenty seconds ago.

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all of the glory, do we? Come on everyone, let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!"

No one claps. Because really, is this bitch for real? Our silence is a message: it says, _Aw _hell _no! You did _not_ just say that shit! Why, I oughta slap you upside the head, child! _I have never been more proud of District 12. They aren't such pussies after all. I almost shed a little bunny tear, this is so sweet.

Then something unexpected happens. At first one person, then someone else, then almost every member of the crowd touches their middle finger to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an ancient and barely used gesture of our district. It means …well, I'm not sure what it means, but there are an awful lot of middle fingers facing the Capitol at the moment. I am bubbling with pride right now. My bunny tear is in danger of becoming mewling kitty tear. I almost sniff.

It is at the height of my pride that Haymitch staggers across the stage to congratulate me. "Look at her! Look at this one!" he hollers, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "I like her…lots of…" He stops to think for a moment. "Spunk!"

Well that's just great. I've got spunk, says the crazy town drunk. Spunk is great and all, but spunk doesn't pay the bills. You can't eat spunk for dinner. Well. You can. But _ughhh_.

Haymitch continues to rant about spunk and having it before he promptly loses his footing and falls off the stage. He's kind of a dirty old man, but I'm grateful he'll be going to the Capitol with me. I'm going to need booze and I'm going to need it soon.

Some Peace Cops carry Haymitch away, while Effie struggles to recapture attention. "What an exciting day!" she trills as she attempts to fix her pink weave. "But more excitement to come; it's time to pick our boy tribute!" She spends another ten minutes fingering the Reaping Ball before she produces a slip of paper. The hushed crowd hushes as her voice rings out: "Peeta Mellark!"

Peeta Mellark?

Well, shit.

Why does my life suck so hard?

There's a whole story behind my sudden angst, but I don't have time to tell it because he's already walking up to the stage and _Ohmygodhe'sgorgeous_. His ashy blond hair is to Gale's abs what heroin is to water. I want to eat that hair. I want that hair in my mouth. I would die for that hair.

Maybe I will.

His face is a mask. When Effie calls for volunteers and not one hand goes up, he just shrugs like he didn't get picked first for a kickball team. Though, just as the mayor begins to read his stupid _Stars Wars _speech, Peeta's eyes meet mine on stage, and they are almost as glimmery and smoldery as his hair. But there's something about that look. It's all sexy and stuff.

Oh my god. I think Peeta Mellark wants to bang me.

I repeat: Why does my life suck_ so hard?_


	4. Chapter 4

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 4**

God, why does it have to be Peeta Mellark? I mean, we aren't friends and I barely know the guy, but I don't want to kill him. Or his hair.

I sort of owe him my life.

It was a long time ago, just after the mine incident, during one of the coldest winters ever to hit District 12. I thought of my father a lot back then. _Why did he do it?_ I'd wonder. _It wasn't even 4/20. _Of course, I never got an answer.

After a period of mourning, it was up to my mother to get a job and resume bringing home the bacon. Only she never did. Instead, she'd spend weeks at a time on the couch in her sweats watching season after season of _Sex and the City_. She went an entire month without speaking, except to say that she was starting to think she was more of a Charlotte and less of a Carrie after a particularly shocking episode.

Needless to say, this was a major pain in my eleven-year-old ass. Prim was only seven at the time and would never stop whining about how hungry she was and how she was dying and how much she missed our stupid dad. I did what I could for her, but a person can only live on straw and muddy water for so long.

That's where Peeta comes in. One evening, I left the house with a box of old clothes, hoping to score some pity in the good part of town by looking particularly pathetic. Maybe I'd had too much straw and not enough water at dinner, because after the two-mile walk into town, I was dizzy with fatigue, starving, and freezing.

The bakery was my first stop. Old man Mellark was oddly well-tempered for a baker who never got baked, so I didn't hesitate to knock on his door. But it wasn't Peeta's father who answered, it was his frigid wicked stepmother, Helga.

"What do we have here?" she asked, appraising my covered box, a repellent lilt in her voice. "Have you brought me a baby? Mmm, we haven't had baby to eat in a long time." Her teeth gleamed menacingly.

"N-no ma'am. Only clothes to sell," I stuttered, because I was a damn cute kid.

Her expression was suddenly feral. "You aren't from the clinic? You haven't brought me a baby?"

"N-no ma'am. I'm just so hungry, and…"

"You think I have baby to spare?" she shrieked. "Get out of here, you little wretch!" She swatted at me with her broom. Yeah, she had a broom.

I ran to the shelter of a nearby tree, shaking with fear and cold and looking cuter than a polar bear in a Coke commercial. When light flooded one of the windows, I caught a glimpse of a boy looking out at me. I jutted out my bottom lip for the ultimate effect. I could see his little heart melting from all the way out here.

Suddenly, there came the sound of a table being flipped and Helga shrieking again. "The instructions say _two _minutes in the microwave, not two minutes and fifteen seconds!" I heard a slap and shied away from the window. "You know how long it took me to churn the butter for all this popcorn, you little wretch? Look at this! _Look at this!_ Throw it out and start from scratch!" Her voice drained out into the yard as the little boy slipped out of the front door.

That's Peeta, the little boy. He looked up the road in both directions until he saw me. Cute little underfed me. He handed me a giant bag of popped corn kernels. An _industrial-sized _bag of popcorn. Then he ran back inside, and if he had never been there.

I was an adorable mess of bunny tears the whole way home. That night, we watched four episodes of _Sex and the City _with Mother, feasting for the first time in months and smiling for the first time in years. That night, I swore I'd never make another sarcastic comment as long as I lived.

Then, of course, all this shit happened and look where it's gotten me. But I digress.

So no, I don't want to kill Peeta Mellark. Not after he saved my life. And not when his hair is practically singing a siren song of glossy locks and butterscotch perfection. And not when - as we shake hands before all of District 12 - he's giving me _that look_. Gale is probably losing his shit in a fit of jealousy at this very moment.

Not that I care or anything.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 5**

The last hour has been a blur. A tedious, wet blur. As soon as that god-awful national anthem finished (something about bombs and stars or something), Peeta and I were ushered into the Injustice Building. I haven't seen him since. We each got our own sitting room to, well, sit in while every poor sucker we're leaving behind paraded through on the pity party line. The only upside was the privacy. Fifteen minutes of fame earlier was enough for me. Now I'll have to endure it until I die. Which I suppose isn't such a long time.

Go ahead and laugh, cruel reader. This could be you someday.

Mother and Prim stopped by. They both cried and blubbered about who will hunt for them now and why can't I stay (that from Prim) and now who will work the TiVo box (that from Mother)? Prim leaking on me earlier was pretty gross, but this was just nasty. I almost had to kick them out as their half-hour drew to a close. Mother looked so snotty, I didn't even have the heart to bitch her out for being such an awful mom. I probably should have, but with me gone she's all Prim has left. The shrew will have to do.

Before they left, Prim spewed the dumbest line I ever heard. "You're so fast and brave. Maybe you can win!"

I wanted to pinch her prick duck face.

I tried to lighten the mood. "Maybe, then we'd be as rich as Haymitch."

Then the second dumbest line ever gurgled from her pouty bill. "I don't care if we're rich. I just want you to come home."

Then I really did kick them out. Now, alone, I breathe in and have the cup of tea which was set out for me. It's cold by now, but it tastes like flowers. I can't imagine who else will visit before I'm taken away. I don't know if visiting privileges extend beyond family. I hope I didn't just waste my only visit on Snotty and Mommy.

The door opens, and I expect to see Peace Cops, but it's a man. Not just any man, it's Old Man Mellark. Peeta's father. What is he doing here? Does he think we're going on _American Idol?_ Has he forgotten that I'm supposed to flay his kid alive in a few days?

He sits clumsily in a comfortable chair. I know the feeling. The words 'plush' and 'upholstery' only entered my vocabulary thirty minutes ago. At home, I'm lucky to get a chair that doesn't give me splinters. He holds out a package to me. Inside are brownies. I stretch my lips into what I hope is a smile, silently hoping the brownies are the special kind. You know what I mean.

"Thank you," I say, confused at best. I don't bother mentioning that Gale and I feasted on his stolen bread just this morning. He probably already knows. What is he doing here?

After an awkward silence in which a take a bite of brownie and then proceed to scarf down the rest. It doesn't taste like brownie. I suddenly can't think of the word for it…sunshine? _Dreams?_

"It's about my son," Mellark sighs. "He's everything to me, but…" His eyes threaten bunny tears. "He's kind of a pussy. He's as good as dead out there."

I nod. I know, I know. What does he want me to do about it?

"I don't want you to promise the impossible, but…could you just watch out for him?"

Yeah, right. That's so not happening. "Sure," I promise. My smile comes easier now, the room is spinning just a little. What is in these brownies? They're special, after all.

He says some other things. I catch the word 'pretend' and 'love' and 'during the Games?', but I'm not paying close attention. When he's done telling me his plan, he pats me on the head and leaves. Dude. I have _five _fingers. _Whoa…_

This stuff is getting to me. I drink more tea.

A minute or so later, I am completely floored by my next visitor. Vadge Badge Madge is strolling over with a tentative smile on her face. The _fuck…?_

"I know you hate me, and you've done nothing but torture me since birth-" I nod, she's right "-but if you're going to represent District Twelve, you should wear my pin in the arena." I move to push her away, but my reflexes are a little dull at the moment, so I sway on my feet as she clips a Jabberjay pin to my dress.

"Why a Jabberjay?" I ask.

"That's us," she points to it and to herself. "Here in District Twelve. We're endangered, annoying as hell, and we never shut up."

I can't argue with that, though I want to. She gives me one last gift before she leaves. A kiss on the cheek. Then she's gone and I'm left thinking that maybe she has hideously misinterpreted my merciless bullying all these years. I remind myself to make her life hell when I get home.

If I get home.

Which I won't.

Gale is my last visitor, and as I predicted, he is losing his shit all over the place. "How do you know this Mellark kid? No, don't answer that. I saw that _look_, I already know. Jesus, Katniss. What about us? You know what, don't answer that either. I hope you die. No, I didn't mean that! Ugh, this is so unfair…"

He rants for twenty-nine and a half minutes. About everything from not being able to hunt together anymore to the Capitol being douchelords to why is this happening to us and how do I expect him to watch me and Peeta being all chummy on TV when all he has is Vadge Badge Madge for company? (I decide not to mention that she may have switched teams since he took her to Prom two years ago; he's got enough on his plate already).

Suddenly the Peace Cops are on standby, and our time is up. I ask him to lift his shirt just one last time, and he does. I stare, committing those heavenly abs to memory. I will dream about these abs in the arena. The thought of these abs will keep my hope alive. Then the Peace Cops are dragging Gale away.

"Wait," he calls to me. "Wait, Katniss, remember I-"

And the Peace Cops slam the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 6**

Thanks to Old Man Mellark's special brownies, I'm almost delirious by the time we reach the train station, which is good because the place is swarming with cameras and reporters. I catch a glimpse of myself on a TV screen, and I'm relieved to see the winning smile on my face. That should freak out the competition, at least a little.

Peeta, on the other hand, has been crying like a bitch this whole time. I can't imagine why he's so sad to leave his family; I mean, his mother's dead and his stepmother didn't even love him. He's getting a free trip to the Capitol, he should be jumping for joy. Except for the, you know, dying part.

I wonder if I wouldn't be crying, too, if I weren't completely stoned. We have to stand outside the station while the cameras record us from every angle for the clip show later. You know, _The Dead Tributes: Greatest Hits_.

The train is pretty fast. The trees and coal dust of District 12 fly by as we speed away from home for the last time. I'd be lying if I said I was sad to leave the coal behind. Coal is life here in District 12. It's all we ever learn about, all we ever talk about. Most boys start work in the mines on their eighteenth birthdays. Every year, our school play is a stage adaptation of _October Sky. _So yeah, I'm sick of coal.

The train is not only fast, it's pretty damn Gucci. Every passenger gets his own suite. As in _multiple rooms_. There's a bedroom, a dressing room, and a private bathroom with hot water and soap that wasn't made from animal fat. There are drawers filled with clothes. _Nice _clothes. I'm talking J. fucking Crew. I'm ashamed at how long I spend just touching them all. I feel like a dystopian princess.

Effie says I can have whatever I want, do whatever I want, wear whatever I want, and maybe we can have a sleepover later, but not if I don't want to? I don't say anything to the sleepover idea. I mean, sure, she's a total Capitol hack, but I don't feel up to tearing people down this afternoon. Effie leaves after an awkward moment, but not before reminding me that dinner is in an hour. Even after this morning's loaf of bread, my stomach rumbles in response. It gives another pang as I remember the morning in full. Seeing Prim's doped out smile, making dumb wisecracks with Gale, kissing those glorious abs. I'm even starting to miss _Sex in the City._

I take a hot shower and hum a song to myself. I used to sing it when I was little. It's about hanging people, I think. It makes me feel better. I dress quickly in the first outfit I touch. If I take time to look through them all right now, I'll miss dinner completely. I'm about to leave when I remember Madge's pin on my dress. I affix it to my green shirt. It's sturdier than I thought; it might be real gold. Even thinking of Madge is getting me all nostalgic, so I slip out of the room without another thought.

Effie is waiting for me in the hall with her Blackberry, texting faster than a thirteen-year-old girl with a crush. She barely acknowledges me as I follow her down to the dining room, except to exclaim "No _way!_" to some invisible correspondent.

I still haven't gotten used to how clean everything is around here. There's a wooden table, but someone had the ridiculous idea to polish it like a leather shoe. In fact, everything in the room looks polished, even the dishes, in which I can almost see my reflection. I am equal parts resentful and crazy jealous of the Capitol. So this is the real reason people revolted all those years ago. They wanted all this swag for themselves. I guess that's the reason the Capitol fought back, too. In class we were taught that 'Panem' means bread. I wonder if it doesn't really mean fancy plates.

Peeta is already seated, waiting for us. The chair next to him is empty.

"Where's Haymitch?" asks Effie brightly. I'm surprised that she sounds like she cares. I'm sure her crooked wig at the Reaping was a big faux pas back in the Capitol.

"Last time I saw him, he said he was going to take a nap," says Peeta. He's not crying now; in fact, he looks perfectly fine. Maybe that was all an act earlier, to make himself look weaker? I hope so, because it definitely lost him cool points in my book.

"Well, it's been a long day," Effie sympathizes, though she looks relieved by his absence.

If I didn't know all about the Starvelympics, I would think they were fattening us up to eat us later. Every time I clear a plate, a waiter sets another one in its place. After sixteen years of bread, wild game, and the occasional pie, it's hard to believe that all these foods can exist. Animals and ingredients from countries I've never eve heard of. Effie tells me the names of some of the dishes, but I come up with better ones, like Oh My God I'm In Heaven, A Cow Can Turn Into _This?_, and Now I Get What The Phrase 'Party In My Mouth' Means!

As we eat, Effie attempts to make conversation. She tells a story about last year's tributes, how they ate like savages and were way too skinny and how grody is that? Thinking of last year's tributes, the party in my mouth is effectively canceled. Or better yet, busted by Peace Cops.

I make it a point to eat the rest of my meal messily with my fingers. When Effie wrinkles her nose ("Oh, _honestly, _Katniss…") I give her a curry-covered middle finger, because it's rude to cuss a person out with your mouth full. She looks confused at that and asks Peeta what the gesture means. He just shrugs and grins into his plate of teriyaki chicken.

After dinner, Peeta and I are ready to be quite thoroughly sick after so much food, but we soldier on to watch the Reaping Recap Special on TV. With the Beach Boys playing in the background, we watch as the eleven other pairs of tributes are marched across stages in their own districts. Their names are displayed beneath their photos like the opening credits of a bad '80s sitcom, but I forget most of them. I'm too busy sizing them up. One huge kid volunteers from District 2. He looks like a douche bag, but maybe that's just because he's wearing a polo. There's a crippled boy from District 10 who might as well off himself right now. Last is a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark skin and brown eyes, but other than that she's Prim's double. Except where Prim is annoying, this girl looks sassy. Deceptively small and innocent-looking to the untrained eye, she could make a good ally. I remember her.

Then they show us. The wholes scene from earlier, starting with Prim being called and looking all tragic. I'm surprised by how desperate and heroic I sound as I push Prim away and take her place, rather than just bitchy. When the district stays silent instead of applauding, one of the announcers suggests that perhaps we are too dumb to remember, citing our standardized test scores as the lowest in the country. And then, of course, Haymitch falls off the stage, only reinforcing the man's point. After Peeta is called, the show is over.

Effie Trinket fusses about her wig, and how Haymitch has absolutely no class.

Peeta laughs, which earns back one of his cool points. "He was drunk, like always. Drunk as a skunk."

"Sitting on a trunk," I add.

"Thinking he's a monk," Peeta finishes solemnly before we both crack up at our cleverness. I'm starting to think maybe the pussy thing is just an act after all. I wonder if I should be worried that he already has a strategy. So far, I've got nothing.

"Yes," hisses Effie. "How odd you two find it amusing. You know your mentor is your lifeline to the world in these Games. The one who advises you, lines up your sponsors, and dictates the presentation of any gifts. Haymitch may very well be the difference between your life and death!"

Whoa there, bitch. I want to cuss her out for the second time tonight, but I settle for rolling my eyes as Haymitch staggers in. "Is there a KFC on this train?" he slurs. "I think I need chicken," he continues before vomiting all over the carpet and collapsing into the puddle.

I almost feel bad for the guy. I mean, we all need chicken sometimes. Effie just doesn't understand.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 7**

Peeta and I kind of just stare at Haymitch for a while. He keeps trying to get up, but slips every time. He looks like a fish out of water. He's even gurgling a little. Peeta and I exchange a glance. Sure, Haymitch is a sad old lout, but he's _our _sad old lout, so we each take one of his arms and haul him to his feet.

"Man," Haymitch drawls. "I just had this dream that I wanted chicken and then I puked and Effie and Peeta were there, and _you _were there, too!" He turns to me, then angles himself away. "Ugh, Katniss, you smell like puke."

"Let's get you back to your room," says Peeta. "Clean you up a bit."

We drag Haymitch back to his room, dumping him in the bathtub. He reminds me of a beached whale. Or a beached Rosie O'Donnell. It is at this point that Peeta and I exchange another glance, because while a shower _à trois_ would be pretty sexy if Gale were here, I am in no hurry to see any more of Haymitch than I have to.

"It's okay," Peeta says to me. "I'll take it from here."

I wonder if Peeta is planning to get ahead in the competition by doing unspeakable things with our mentor once I'm gone. It wouldn't be the first time. When I was six, a tribute sang Shania Twain karaoke in front of the whole country just to get sponsors. Of course, his plan backfired, as country music is known to stir up feelings of maddening rage in most reasonable people. But if Peeta wants to be Haymitch's favorite _that_ badly, I'm not going to stand in his way.

"I mean, I can send one of the Capitol people in to help you…" The train is crawling with Capitol has-beens working as servants. Effie says they'll cook and clean for us, and read us bedtime stories if we want. She says they do _all _the voices, too.

"No. I don't want them," says Peeta. He's really going to do this? Alrighty then. I'm out of there faster than a baby-daddy in the Ghetto.

As I lay in bed, finally letting my thoughts settle, I consider that fact that maybe Peeta is just being nice. Like when he brought me that popcorn, all those years ago. It's no good if he's _nice_, though. It would make these Games that much harder. I decide to make an effort to avoid Peeta Mellark from now on. I sit up. I'm not tired. I cross to the window and consider tossing Old Man Mellark's brownies on the tracks, but I don't. Instead, I eat one and look out across the countryside. The train has stopped and outside everything is still. Just along the tracks, I see dandelions.

Dandelions…

The night Peeta gave me the popcorn was the night I saw the first dandelion of the season. It was then that I knew everything was going to be okay. There were seventy-six dandelion recipes in my copy of _Julia's Guide to Cooking from the Garden_, or _Damn Girl, You Poor!_ I knew that even after the popcorn was gone, we would have food until the spring. Even if my mother never got up off the couch, Prim and I would be okay.

The next day was Monday. Prim and I returned to school as if we hadn't been near death the night before. Over the next few weeks, while Prim kept picking dandelions, I braved the fence around the district for the first time. With just a knife and my father's bow, I hunted alone for the first time. When I brought home the meat that night, my mother's eyes lit up for the first time. I guess she was also getting sick of eating, uh, _nothing_ for the last three months. She took a rabbit I'd caught and skinned that sucker right on the kitchen table and made Peter Cottontail Surprise for dinner.

The next few weeks were like a things-are-getting-better montage in a Disney movie. There were woodland creatures and everything. Until, you know, I shot them. Mother was more like herself again, which was still pretty damn lazy, but better than nothing. Prim started looking less like a sick animal and more like a prostitute. Things were looking up for everyone. I suppose things are still good at home now. Even if I'm not there anymore. How sad.

I shut the train window. I see lights in a far off district. Somewhere out there, a roof is on fire. Kids are getting crunk. Tearing up the dancefloor. And I'm on a death train. And people have to wonder why I'm so bitter.

I crawl back into bed, feeling my eyes prickle with those mewling kitty tears I was scared of before. I try to turn on the waterworks - now is as good a time as any to cry like a bitch - but nothing happens. Great. I've become a fembot who can't even cry right.

I can't sleep either. Every time I close my eyes, I dream. And the dreams are terrifying. The Beach Boys become the soundtrack to my nightmares. Haymitch is standing on this afternoon's stage singing _"Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband 'cause they're Reapin' errbody out here…"_ in an infinite loop while Effie Trinket cackles like Peeta's stepmother. The shadowy figure of Prim - or is it that tribute from District 11? - points a gun at me sideways from the audience with a smirk. She looks me in the eyes and mouths two words before pulling the trigger: _"Quack, bitch."_ Then the Games are over, and I'm coming home? Still alive! I'm in ecstasy at the thought of seeing Gale again, only to find that his tummy's gotten flabby in my absence. I wake to the sound of my own bloodcurdling scream.

Or maybe it's just Effie Trinket, calling for me to wake up because it's going to be a big big day and it is therefore necessary to shriek about it in my ear. I try to understand Effie for a moment. What does she think about? What does she care about? It's probably something stupid like her Giga Pet or the fern she left unwatered back at home.

I dress in yesterday's clothes, adjusting the pin and my braid. We must be near the Capitol by now. I feel these little prickles on my arms; you know, those little sparks of excitement you feel as you slowly approach your own death? In a few hours, stylists will be making me over for the opening ceremonies tonight. I just hope I don't get one of the crazies who mistake Lady Gaga's dementia for fashion sense. I don't want to be paraded around in shoulder pads and spray-on clothes. I don't think Peeta does either, but after last night, how would I know what he likes?

When I sit down for breakfast, a long string of obscenities are trailing from Effie's mouth behind her coffee cup. Really. Like, actual fuckwords. I'm impressed. Haymitch is chuckling and Peeta's face is red.

"Have something to drink," encourages Haymitch. He's actually coherent this morning. Impressed again. There is more breakfast food here than at McDonald's on a Saturday morning. I'm spoiled for choice. Before me is a cup of something sweet and steamy.

"They call it Irish coffee," says Peeta. "It's good…" he trails off.

Well, I could use some caffeine, right? I take a sip of the creamy liquid. Then I gulp the rest down. Peeta's a dirty liar, it's _so much better than good_. I drink another. Then another. Then my stomach feels like it might burst and I have to stop. I watch the others as the pain subsides. Peeta's scarfing down bread, Haymitch's drink looks like lamb's blood, and Effie left at some point, spitting her butthurt comments into her own drink on the way out.

_Oh. _I lock eyes with Peeta suddenly as I get that _whoosh-_y feeling, like I'm on a swingset. I pick up my coffee cup and sniff it. Peeta does the same.

"This was just coffee, right? The Irish part doesn't mean anything…?" I begin, but when I let out an involuntary giggle, my suspicions are confirmed.

Peeta giggles, too, when he tries to glare at Haymitch. He must be behind this, who else would try to get two kids drunk at nine a.m.? I sigh and nibble on a roll. Nothing I can do about it now. We can be such silly doomed kids sometimes.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 8**

The more coffee I drink, the more I detest Haymitch. No wonder everyone laughs when District 12 tributes are killed off. We don't stand a chance. Not because we're so skinny or because our only skills include digging for rocks and marrying our cousins. It's because Haymitch's shitty attitude scares off any sponsors or rich Capitol citizens who might want to help us out.

"So, you're supposed to give us advice," I remind Haymitch, picking over the biscuits in the bread basket. So there really is a KFC on this train.

Haymitch barks out a laugh. "Here's some advice," he says. "Don't get killed."

I'm completely surprised by Peeta's response. Peeta, who I'd thought was always so mild. "Hey, fuck you, dude." He knocks Haymitch's glass off the table, leaving a bloodred stain on the carpet. "We don't need your shit today."

Haymitch throws a look to his fallen Blood-quila, then his fist crunches Peeta's jaw, knocking him out of the chair. When he turns back to his drink, I bring the butter knife down on one of his fingers.

Haymitch Abernathy screams like a bitch with a positive pregnancy test. His finger's fine, just red and a little bloody. "Ain't that some shit," he muses once he's calmed down. "I actually got a pair of fighters this year."

Peeta frowns and holds a biscuit up to the bruise forming on his jaw. Of course, being the son of a baker, he would have bread-related healing powers.

"Don't do that," advises Haymitch. "Let the audience think you come from a broken home. It'll get you pity, if nothing else."

Isn't every home broken around here? I want to ask, but I keep my mouth shut. A bruise may look yummy on Peeta, but it'll look like skin disease on me.

Haymitch turns to me and, for a second, I think he heard my thoughts. "What about you?" he asks. "Can you use a knife anywhere other than the kitchen?"

Peeta chuckles and fist-bumps Haymitch. Oh. Haha. Because I'm a woman.

The knife has sliced through Haymitch's thumb and into the table before he's even blinked. The finger is still attached, just bleeding a bit more than the other one, but after three seconds of silence Haymitch screams, "_Motherfuck!"_ anyway.

An hour or so later, after Haymitch has finally saturated the (tiny) gash with alcohol and had one of the Capitol servants bandage it three times, he agrees to help us in the Games.

"Keep this shit up and you're going to need all the help you can get."

I mean, I _think_ that means he'll help us…

"Then what's a good starting strategy, at the Cornucopia?" Peeta asks.

"Is it best to go for water or weapons?" I add.

"Is bestiality-"

"Whoa there," Haymitch laughs like Santa Claus: _Whoa-ho-ho there._ "Slow your roll. We'll be at the station in a matter of minutes. First you'll meet your stylists, all of whom are flaming homosexuals. They might seem strange at first, but they're really very nice people who deserve just as much respect as you and me."

"Wait," Peeta's face visibly drops. "Even the girls?"

Haymitch gives Peeta a grave look of empathy, like he was once in Peeta's shoes, which he was. "The girls are just guys in drag. Or post-op transsexuals."

A breath leaves Peeta in a shaky little gasp. He has the look of a middle-class American pre-teen being told that Christmas has been canceled, oh and that also his parents are getting divorced and yes it's all because of him.

I actually pat him on the shoulder. I don't know why. My hand moves on its own, comforting poor Peeta Mellark who is doomed to get zero play this year in the Capitol.

Haymitch moseys on out of the car to get his things before we reach the city. It's suddenly dark, and I see that we're in the tunnel that passes through the mountains to reach the Capitol. Why they couldn't pave a road _around the giant mountains_ is beyond me. But it's the freaking Capitol. They walk around with tattoos on their eyeballs and wear Hannah Montana t-shirts on days _other_ than Halloween. So yeah, they're pretty dumb to start with.

Peeta and I don't talk as we pass through the tunnel. We both know what we'll see on the other side. The one place no tribute ever leaves alive. Well, except one. I'm thinking of my approaching death when suddenly, the train car is flooded with light. My eyes adjust and I see the Capitol for the first time in my life.

They call Paris the city of lights? Fuck Paris.

New York City has the tallest buildings in the world? The coolest? It's the place where all your American Dreams will come true?

_Fuck New York City._

The Capitol is the tallest, brightest eyesore there ever was. Never in my giddiest daydreams or acid trips could I have imagined a citylike this. Looking at any of the buildings straight-on is blinding. The sunlight is refracted in countless spectrums of color. Rainbows with_ eight colors_! We can only afford to see seven colors back home.

God, even the dirt here is worth more than my house. More than Madge's house. More than all of District 12.

(What I'm saying here is we're really, really poor. And our lives suck. You got that, right?)

People stop along the tracks to point at the train as it passes. They're all smiling, waving, knowing we're going to die in just a few days. On primetime TV, after _Deal or No Deal_ but before _To Catch A Predator_. I see a child on the street. She has golden curls and wears a red dress with pink spots. She and her mother have matching kitty ears. And diamond-studded flip-flops. They're beautiful and disgusting. I am filled with the overwhelming urge to _be _that little girl.

Or eat her. Her curls probably taste like love and chocolate and hope. And L'Oréal Kids.

I shrink away from the window, my Irish coffee threatening to come back up. Peeta, however, waves back at the passersby.

"What?" he asks at the look I give him. "Gotta win these games somehow," he shrugs.

Oh.

I see.

So he saves my life as a kid and gives me The Look and his dad scores me free drugs, and now he's going to hunt me just like all the other tributes? So that's how it's gonna be? Well, hooker, two can play at that game. _These _Games.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 9**

The hours following our arrival in the Capitol are a painful blur of pulling and scratching and ripping and scrubbing. You know those makeover montages in those Disney Channel Original Movies? Where the girl spins in the beautician's chair and oh wow, she's suddenly gorgeous! _It's a giant baby-fucking lie!_ Sitting here while a man dressed as a butch schoolgirl called Venia waxes my legs, my skin is on fire, my scalp may be bleeding, and I may at some point have been violated with a spoon.

"So sorry, _dahlin_'" Venia apologizes every five minutes in that awful Capitol accent. It's funny when it's just Effie at the Reaping back home. Here, where _everyone_ sounds fucking retarded, it grates at my nerves. "We're just optimizing your facial climate and cleansing the epidermis."

That's another thing. They use these stupid, long-ass words, most of which I'm sure are made up. Like "facial climate"? What the fuck is that? My face isn't the arctic tundra!

"Uh-huh," I loll my head in what's supposed to be a nod. Taking pity on me early on, Venia slipped me a few purple tablets. I'm just now snapping back into consciousness. Hence the sudden burning sensation _all over my body_.

"Alrighty," Venia's bejeweled unibrow furrows. "Only one more." My eyes only just trail down to the bit of fabric stuck to my leg as he rips it free, taking with it a clump of my hair. A strangled howl escapes me, and I make up a few words of my own in the ten minutes of cussing that follow.

Venia thinks I'm the funniest thing ever. He giggles when I call his mother a one-legged breeding ground for syphilis who couldn't even get on Jerry Springer because he puked on a homeless kitten when he saw her photo.

"Who's Jerry Springer?" he asks. I guess they don't watch trash TV in the Capitol. This place is making me sicker with every passing second.

I've been here almost three hours and I still haven't met my stylist. I wonder why as Venia and his life-partner Flavius cart me over to a tub, where they scrub me down and wash my hair. I smell L'Oréal Kids. I smile a little despite myself.

Flavius is a tiny bit more bearable than Venia. He talks slowly to me, as if I'm too dumb to understand the intricacies of his fabulous world, but he at least avoids using made up words. We have a one-sided conversation in which he recaps the last episode of some show called _The Hills_ that's the biggest thing in the Capitol since the president's sex tape got out. In its fifty-ninth season, all the girls on the show are beginning to age, despite the years of plastic surgery keeping their faces attached. He says it's all very sad and very hard to watch - one of them just hit the hundred-ten-pound mark! - and I nod in agreement because the show makes absolutely no sense. I mean, sure, we in the Districts live with security cameras trained on us at all times, but not because we _want to_.

"You're such a good listener," compliments Flavius as he towels me down. "Venia's never interested in what I have to say."

"Yeah, well," I agree. "He _is _sort of a tool."

Flavius giggles like Tickle-Me-Elmo and pokes me on the nose. "You silly duck," he titters. I don't entirely appreciate the little pang that nickname gives me. "Wait right here," he instructs. Like I'm gonna_ go somewhere._

I spend an award six minutes standing naked until Flavius returns with a small crew of men wearing various amounts of eyeliner and glitter. They all ooh and ahh at what a good job they've done. Venia blushes like Bashful the Dwarf. Even Flavius looks a little bit proud of himself.

Was I really that fugly before?

My lips contort into a painful grin. "Thanks so much." My voice is like candied diabetes. "We never take baths back home. We have to scrub ourselves with wet rocks and moss."

This wins them over completely. The next five minutes is an endless chorus of _You poor thing! _and _No Macy's and now no baths? What next, no In-N-Out Burger?_

I don't bother mentioning that there is, in fact, no fucking In-N-Out Burger in District 12, but I'm afraid they might all burst into tears. Not that I'd care. Sure, it's fine when I poke fun at the Ghetto, but it stings a little coming from Capitol hacks.

Flavius gets a hold of himself before the others. "Oh, you dream, you. It'll all be okay," he smiles, as if I'm the one who's crying like a bitch. "Look on the bright side: you never have to go back to that awful place again!"

He claps his hands together like he just wrote the _Yes We Can _speech. I don't bother mentioning that I will, in fact, be returning to District 12. In a body bag and possibly in multiple pieces. Or in a Ziploc bag if there's only ashes left.

Flavius pats me on the back, calls me "girlfriend", and leaves with his team. Out go Team Torture and in walks Cinna.

He is not what I expected. He looks so. Straight. Except for the eyeliner, which actually suits him. He's tall and wears all black. His jeans are skinnier than Kate Moss in profile. He's kind of gorgeous. If he weren't gay, my hands would be all over that body. Like, _all over_.

But it's the first words out his mouth that pretty much change my life:

"You look like you could use a blunt right about now."

Holy shit.

I am rendered entirely speechless. I have to take a deep breath to keep from sobbing a lake of bunny tears. In this moment, Cinna is my tall, dark, gay Jesus. I have found salvation. Life is fucking beautiful.

"You can say that shit again."


	10. Chapter 10

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 10**

Cinna and I become fast friends in the next few hours. Once he finds out that _Family Matters _is still playing in re-runs in District 12, he insists that I recap every episode after the season four finale when the show was canceled in the Capitol due to low ratings. The WB doesn't care so much about ratings in the districts, so shows never get canceled back home. Shows never premiere, either, though.

In exchange for this wealth of information, Cinna makes me beautiful. Now, I'm already a hot piece of ass in District 12, but that's barely cute by Capitol standards. Cinna falls into a trance. Eyelashes are curled, nails are clipped, hair is styled, blush is applied. He is an artist and I am a canvas. Vanilla-scented lotion glosses my legs, and the bitter stings of the waxing fades to a soft tickle.

I struggle to remember the later episodes of _Family Matters _as he works his magic on my body.

"And then Urkel says, 'Did _I _do-'"

My stomach gurgles once. Then lets out a mighty roar. I suddenly remember that I haven't had anything to eat since that Irish coffee on the train this morning.

Cinna blinks, pulled from his trance. He pokes my stomach once. It growls in response. "What's that?" he asks, curious. "Why are you making that sound?"

At first I'm shocked, then I reason that Cinna has probably never been hungry in his life. Neither, I figure, has anyone else in the Capitol. For the millionth time, I wonder how such a place can exist. "I'm hungry," I tell him.

I expect Cinna to be intrigued by yet another foreign concept. I don't expect him to get angry.

"Those dickwads." He balls his hands into fists. "To watch pretty little girls starve and do nothing about it! You-" he pats my stomach, addressing it directly. "We're going to get some food in you."

It occurs to me that Cinna might still be high, but I think I might love him.

..

I thought the meals on the train were extravagant. I really did. I thought that was the richest, most delicious food there could ever be. I was so wrong.

Orange chicken is my new favorite thing. I say this after each new dish, and it is true every single time. Broccoli cheddar soup. A turkey Panini. Combination lo mein. Orange chicken.

I think of how long it would have taken to create a meal such as this back home. Weeks of hunting, cooking, scavenging for ingredients. We'd never be able to find some of them. Even then, the meal would be a disgrace compared to this. I wonder what these people do with all the free time this leaves them. Is this why there are so many gay hair stylists in the Capitol?

We eat in silence for a while, Cinna watching me for the most part. He is so full of pity, and it's actually okay with me. Usually I don't need that shit. I don't need people feeling bad for me, but I can tell that Cinna's pity is a true sorrow, deep in his soul. I respect that. He respects me.

"You must hate us," he mashes his food into nothing on his plate with a fork. "You must think we're the worst bunch of hacks there ever was."

I can't argue with that. It's what they are. Maybe they don't all know it, or want to be - like Cinna - but that doesn't make them different. Regardless, I don't answer the question. The conversation turns to my clothing.

"We've been working on your costume for the opening ceremony for weeks now. As you know, it's customary for tributes to wear something which reflects the flavor of their district."

I know this all too well. District 12 is a coal-mining district. Therefore, our costumes are always either hideous or mortifying. I have seen too many tributes clad in black trash bags to expect anything better. I hope that this year's costume will at least be more dignified than last year's, where one tribute dressed as a black Santa and the other a lump of coal trailing behind him. It looked like he'd taken a shit and dragged it through town for everyone to see. I don't know what those stylists were thinking, and - needless to say - the NAACP was all over their ass for making Black Santa look bad. Which is probably why Cinna has taken over this year.

"Portia and I think the coal miner look has been overdone. These costumes are supposed to make you two stand out. They should be unforgettable."

A chill crawls up my spine. I pray to Black Santa that Cinna won't make Peeta and I strut naked through the Capitol singing Shania Twain karaoke. I will just die, I tell you. Choke on this orange chicken and fuckin' die.

"Should I be afraid?" I ask, my voice a girlish squeak.

Cinna smirks. "You're not afraid of scandalizing a nation, are you?"

..

I said I loved Cinna before. There are few to no words for the unadulterated bliss I feel at the mere mention of my stylist right now.

I am dressed in what can only be described as the sluttiest outfit ever sewed by human hands. My eyes are rimmed with kohl, my hair is drawn back in a severe bun, you can practically see my ovaries under the dress I'm in - skin-tight charmeuse black - and the chances of my boobs spilling over the top are dangerously high. And my lips - my lips are the best part - they're on fire. My lipstick is layered red, orange, and bright yellow. I look as if I could spit flames. I am not coal. I actually have no idea what I am. But I am fucking gorgeous.

"There's more," reminds Cinna, holding up his _I Heart Cap City_ lighter. He plans to set me and Peeta on fire just before our chariot pulls out. "I want everyone to remember you. Katniss: the flaming slut."

The wicked glint in Cinna's eye momentarily freaks me out, no lie. But I trust Cinna. With my clothes, at least.

At the launch party before the ceremony, Peeta shows up. He and Portia walk in ten minutes late and I swear to god, time slows down.

Peeta is wearing leather pants.

Holy shit. If Portia wasn't already married to Ellen Degeneres, I would get down on one knee right now.

Once my heart has dislodged itself from my throat, I approach Peeta. Cinna has been cornered by fans, all mooning over him and asking if he's single and if he'll donate sperm so they can begin breeding a race of superstylists (some of them are female). Cinna looks unimpressed. He warned me about these admirers earlier. The women are all ugly and the men are all hipsters.

I have to hand it to Peeta. If I were walking up to me tonight, I would freak out at the sight of me. Besides a few seconds of spasming and gurgling, Peeta's completely cool about the flaming slut thing.

I am literally just about to say hi when we are both whisked out onto the street, where our chariot awaits. At this point, things are moving too fast for me to keep up, so I go limp for the most part and let myself be guided into the chariot and my hair sprayed and my lipstick touched up. I look down. My lips glow in the dark. I have never felt so radiant in my life. Cinna and Portia are exchanging notes when I finally get a chance to talk to Peeta.

"Are they really going to set our clothes on fire?" I whisper to Peeta. "Couldn't we get burned?"

Peeta shrugs. "I'd be more worried about a wardrobe malfunction if I were you."

I laugh. All the stress of the Starvelympics is coming back. This chariot ride is the only the first of many horrifying events to come. Culminating, of course, in my death. So when I say _I laugh_ I mean _I give a hysterical little cackle_. Peeta's gaze drops to mine. I see my own anxiety mirrored in his eyes. He chuckles, then barks out a laugh. Amusement is a sudden tickle in my throat. And then we're both giggling like little girls. The idea of a wardrobe malfunction is the funniest thing either or us has ever heard.

I have to contain myself before my eyes water and smudge my eyeliner, but I have this odd feeling that, for tonight at least, things are going to be okay.

You can hear the roar of the crowd as the other tributes pass the center of town. The first districts are easy favorites, but the cheers grow less enthusiastic as each one passes. Then it's our turn. Cinna pulls out his lighter, and before I can protest, he sets me on fire.

Peeta and I cringe in unison, waiting for the pain, but there is none. I look back. I was right to trust Cinna. I am ablaze, I am a sparkling beacon of hope for anyone who gazes upon me. Have you ever reminded yourself of one of the Kardashians? I did. Just then.

Cinna plants a kiss on my cheek. "Remember: heads high, big smiles. They're going to love you!"

The chariot lurches forward. Cinna is so excited. Like we're his two kids on the first day of Kindergarten. Like he's the proud father of two totally adequate children. He waves with both hands and we're off.

The crowd is silent for a moment as we pass through town. Some of them look as if they were about to leave after District 11's display. I let out a shallow breath.

And then the crowd completely loses its shit.

_Remember: heads high, big smiles. They're going to love you!_ Cinna said. He was right.

I take Peeta's hand in mine, and not only do I smile. I _beam_.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 11**

"You were amazing!" croons Cinna as soon as our chariot has passed into the prep area.

"You were radiant!" agrees Portia.

Both Peeta and my prep teams swarm us immediately, showering us in praise. Cinna and I bump fists. Champagne is poured into tall glasses and giggles abound.

Looking around the area, the other prep teams and tributes are not so pleased by our great success in the town square. Most of them get my middle finger when I catch their glares, but I feel bad for some of them. I will never understand why the District 11 tributes are dressed as Dora and Diego.

Portia pulls me aside just as Peeta and I begin to talk. She hands me a glass of bubbly and we hover in a corner while Cinna and Peeta huddle in another. I can't tell what they're saying over there, but Peeta laughs at one of Cinna's corny jokes. I don't miss how Cinna's finger hooks the belt loop of Peeta's leather pants.

"What's up with him?" I ask Portia, who looks downright gleeful.

"He wants you to tell him all about Peeta later. He thinks he has a chance."

Oh does he. I top off my glass and rejoin my fellow tribute. Peeta grins at me, taking an idle step back from Cinna.

"Cinna was just telling me about his pet cat back in design school," he chuckles, though no part of that statement strikes me as particularly funny.

"Could you get us more champagne?" I ask Cinna, who takes both our empty glasses and swaggers over to the refreshment bar. Peeta watches him go. How many ways does this boy swing?

"Thanks for keeping hold of me out there. I thought I might faint." He looks right into my eyes. His are such a brilliant blue. Mine must be so dull in comparison. I am reminded then of the look he first gave me, as we stood together on stage at the Reaping. That _Damn girl, you sexy_ look.

I wonder what game he's playing. I really can't tell. Does he want me or the sponsors or Cinna or just to survive? It's dangerous for me not to know.

"I'm sure you looked fine," I say, giving him a playful punch on the arm.

"I doubt anyone was looking at me," he smirks. "Not with you there. You should wear black more often." He trails a finger over the fabric of my dress. "It suits you." Then he flashes a smile so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that I get a little dizzy.

Ugh, this is what he wants. This is all part of his plan to kill me. How can I forget that? He's luring me in to make me easy prey. The more likable he is, the more deadly.

But because two can play at this game, I lean forward and kiss his cheek. I hear the sizzle of my fiery lipstick on his skin and wonder if it will burn.

..

Above the Training Center is the tall building where the tributes will stay until the Games start. It's a five-star hotel that doubles at the _American Idol _mansion on the off-season. Each district gets its own floor. There's this big glass elevator that takes us all the way to the top. I feel like I'm at the Chocolate Factory except there's no twitchy pedophile promising me candy goodness beyond my wildest dreams. I've only ridden the elevator a few times before. Once in the Injustice Building back home, when they gave me that _Sorry your dad's splattered on a cave wall somewhere but ooh look a shiny medal _medal. And then just two days ago, when I had to say good-bye to everyone I love in less than an hour.

Well, everyone I _like_. You know what I mean.

The elevator shoots towards the twelfth floor. My stomach flies into my throat and all the people below shrink to ants. I see the little girl from District 11 staring in awe. She gives me the creeps. From so high up, she looks a bit like Prim. Freaks me out.

Effie pulls me along when the elevator finally stops. Apparently, her job entails more than being stylish and sounding like Fran Drescher with a cold and checking her Facebook every five minutes. She and Haymitch will be overseeing us right into the arena. It's probably for the best, having her around. At least she'll get us places on time, whereas I haven't seen Haymitch in hours. Last I heard, he was mumbling about screwdrivers and _Jersey Shore_. So.

Effie, though? She ain't even mad. After the debut Peeta and I made tonight, she's on top of the world. Her lipstick is hot pink, her heels are painfully tall, and she's smiling and giggling all over the place. She's been running around town since dawn, talking us up to the Capitol elite, trying to get us sponsors. Earlier, she tried to explain the whole "popularity" thing to me. She kept comparing it to her high school, where - apparently - the prettiest, most popular girls get all the boys and drive Mercedes Benzes. Getting to meet so many famous people, Effie said, makes her feel like the prettiest, most popular girl at school.

I didn't bother telling her that the most popular girl at my school was missing a finger and drove a Geo Metro.

"I've been really coy about you two, though," Effie trills through the third recounting of her day among the stars. "Because, of course, Haymitch hasn't bothered to tell me your strategies. But I've done my best with what I have to work with." She gives me a little poke in the chest. "How you sacrificed yourself for your sister. How you've got a…certain charm with the boys."

She's calling me a slut. How ironic, coming from the woman dressed as Neon Fuck Me Barbie. And sure, my dress is so tight it may have to be blurred out on the morning news tomorrow, but I liked the judgment better coming from Cinna.

"People are skeptical, of course, you being from a coal mining district and all. I mean, they've all seen _October Sky._ But I said, and this was very clever of me, I said, 'Well, she's kind of like a Blow Pop: she's tough on the outside, but if you lick her enough, you'll see she's really soft in the middle!'"

…the fuck? I raise a hand to comment, but I know better than to start an argument with Effie Trinket, who thinks astronomy is fortune-telling. And that District 13 was just unlucky.

"Of course, we can't nail any sponsors down without Haymitch," says Effie, shaking her head. "No worries. I'll drag him to the table at gunpoint if I have to."

My gaze shoots up to hers.

"What?" Effie frowns, idly cracking her neck to the side. "My Taser's out of batteries and I used all my mace on the concierge. "

Effie Trinket may be 90% peroxide, but I'm starting to think that - beneath that curly wig - Effie Trinket is 10% batshit crazy bitch. I laugh conspiratorially. I can deal with that.


	12. Chapter 12

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 12**

I'm starving again by the time Effie calls me down to dinner. My hotel room is amazing. I used to think the Motel 6 back home was nice, if you ignored the cockroaches – rivaled in size only by the giant ones rumored to live in District 13, feeding off nuclear waste – and the generally poor room service. It seems I have been trapped in a glass cage of ignorance my whole life.

This hotel puts that one to shame, kicks it while it's down, then spits on it and calls it a bitch.

When I first entered the room, an alabaster white chocolate statue of Adonis waited on my pillow. A weird light flashed in the bathroom and I was suddenly fully showered and dried and I smelled like Starbucks. It was amazing.

The windows zoom in and out on parts of the city at my command. They even have a people-watching feature, which zooms in on random strangers and makes snide comments through the surround system in the walls. I spend a ridiculously long time with my nose pressed against the glass, spying on passersby while the room says, _That girl is gorgeous but I bet she's anorexic, Is that a Jewish cowboy puh-lease, _and _That's just a generally ugly human being. _You can apparently set the people-watching feature on yourself, but I figure getting slaughtered in the Hunger Games is enough abuse without a hotel room calling me fat.

Effie knocks on the door and calls my name a few times before I respond. I check my reflection before following her down to the dining room. My nose is all red and splotchy and my eyes have to adjust after staring out a dark street for so long. The Capitol is already turning me into a hack.

I'll shame myself about this later. After food.

..

Peeta, Cinna, and Portia are looking down on the city from the balcony when Effie and I arrive. Cinna sees me first. Cinna breaks away from the group as a servant boy calls us all to be seated.

"What have you doing?" he asks, tapping his nose with an amused look at mine, as if he knows I've been glass-licking for the past two hours.

"Oh, you know," I shrug. "Lots of coke."

"Sure," he laughs. "And I've been hooking up with Chace Crawford in the hotel lobby."

My extremely clever response is cut off by a servant setting stemmed glasses of wine before each of us. I take a quick sip and secretly think it could be improved by a few shots of vodka. Haymitch's seat lies empty until just before the first course is served. It's bizarre, seeing him look so clean and respectable. Now he looks more like an impeached president than a scandalized state senator. More Bill Clinton and less Eliot Spitzer. Maybe it's the suit with it remarkable lack of puke stains, or how he's finally shaved his pedostache. His stylist must be crying from exhaustion in her room right now.

Cinna and Portia seem to have a civilizing effect on Haymitch and Effie. Effie makes lots of small talk praising our look at the opening ceremony and Haymitch only calls her a dumb ho twice. While the adults talk, I inhale each new dish. Mushroom soup, bitter greens with tomatoes the size of peas, rare roast beef sliced as thin as paper, noodles in a green sauce, and cheese that melts on your tongue served with sweet blue grapes.

I also take in the servants, all of whom hover around the table, wordlessly removing empty plates and filling wine glasses as we eat. A servant sets two new glasses before me, seeing the speed at which I drained the first few. I feel a buzz coming on and wonder in jealous awe how Haymitch can walk around like this all this all time.

Cinna starts talking about my interview dress when another servant girl sets a cake in front of me and flicks a lighter. The whole thing goes up in flames for a moment.

"Whoa," I breathe. "How do you do that? Is it the—_hey,_ I know you."

So I don't _really_ know the servant girl, but I sort of do, like maybe I saw her at a party once back home. Her dark red hair and pale skin spark some recognition in my head, but it puts a bad feeling in my stomach. Did I steal her boyfriend in middle school or something? In immediate response to my comment, the girl shakes her head and backs away into the kitchen.

"Honestly, Katniss. How could possibly know an Avox?" snaps Effie from across the table.

"What's an Avox?" I ask.

"Avox are criminals. The Peace Cops cut their tongues so they can't speak and make them wait tables and stuff around the Capitol," explains Haymitch. "Not likely you'd know her."

"And you're never supposed to speak to them, it against the law," Effie stabs her fork in my direction.

"Jesus, guys. Chill your tits, I wasn't gonna talk to her."

"Of course not." Effie looks all smug. "Because you don't know her."

I can't help it, I have to talk back. "Oh yeah? Who says I don't kn-"

"_Lafawnduh!"_ Peeta bursts out.

We all just kind of look at him.

"She looks just like Lafawnduh, doesn't she? That why she seems so familiar." He gives me one of those Play Along looks, but – seriously – what the fuck is he talking about?

"Who is Lafawnduh?" asks Portia, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

"Remember, Katniss? The girl. On _Jerry Springer_? With the chest. And the baby-daddy? And the chair, remember she smashed a chair?"

I actually do remember Lafawnduh now. She was this three-hundred-pound middle-schooler from District 5 with syphilis and like three unclaimed babies. She had maybe ten guys on the show and flipped out when the DNA revealed that _none of them_ were the father. She bit a security guard and smashed a chair over Jerry's head. Maybe she's an Avox now, too.

She didn't have red hair, though. In fact, she had these really awful blonde corn-rows and looked nothing like the Avox serving us dinner. I probably am going too far, though, breaking Capitol social protocol. Peeta's getting me out of trouble. Again.

"Yeah," I nod lamely. "You're right. Hopefully she won't smash a chair on me," I laugh awkwardly.

The whole table laughs like I'm really funny. I see the Avox girl in the kitchen doorway. A little tear rolls down her cheek and, for the first time in my entire life, I feel really shitty for making a joke at someone else's expense.

What's happening to me?


	13. Chapter 13

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 13**

The recap of the opening ceremony runs on every channel. We all take our dessert into the sitting room to watch, but no one pays attention until Peeta and I show up, glowing like fire and generally slutting it up. You can hear this guy in the crowd shouting, "Take me home, I must have you!" I think he's yelling at me until I hear, "I want in those leather pants!" Portia gets high-fives all around for that.

"Whose idea was the hand-holding?" Haymitch asks and the camera zooms in our our faces.

"Cinna's, I guess," shrugs Peeta.

"Just the perfect touch of innocence," he nods. "Very nice. People will connect to that."

Cinna whispers something in Haymitch's ear and he laughs, then looks over as us. "Anyway, tomorrow's the first training session, so I want you both up early to go over talents and strategies. Now get to bed, adults are talking."

"I'm not tired," Peeta crosses his arms, though he's clearly exhausted.

"I don't care, get lost."

"Ugh, fuck you," I mean to snap, but it comes out in a sleepy drawl. I yawn, "Fuck you in the morning. I mean, see you. I mean…" and Peeta carts me out, bleary-eyed.

When we get to my door, Peeta leans against the frame, blocking my way. "So, crazy finding a girl like Lafawnduh all the way out here, huh?" he asks. He clearly wants to know who I really saw tonight. Now that I remember her, though, it's not a story I want to share with Peeta of all people.

"It was no one, really. Let's just go to bed."

"Come on, Katniss. Tell me."

"Fuck off, Peeta." I take a step around him.

"Oh _please_, Katniss." Peeta's holding back a laugh as he puts his hands together and gives me this look that he probably thinks is stupid but makes me wonder if Jesus personally sculpted his cheekbones. "Dying man's last wish?"

"Now I definitely won't," I laugh.

Peeta grabs my arm. "Want to see something awesome, then?" His grin is all crinkly and his eyes are a little crazy with fatigue. It must be past two at least. At school they used to say that people in the Capitol get these chips implanted in their heads so they never have to sleep. I never believed it back then, but it must be true. It explains a lot, now that I think of it. Like how they can party for weeks on end without rest, or how they have time to think up all these dumb new trends and fashions, or – you know – why they're so fucking crazy in general.

Peeta stops in front of heavy door on the top floor. It pushes open onto the roof of the hotel. Cool air rushes over us, and we step out.

The view is incredible. There is so much shit in this city, and I can see all of it. Skyscrapers, rooftop gardens, huge marquees flashing the names of celebrities I've never heard of. The dull roar of parties and conversations and music, even from all the way up here.

Peeta rushes over to the railing at the edge and I follow, feeling high and tired and crazy. I look straight down the side of the building to the street. Everyone looks so small.

"Aaaah!" Peeta shouts. Just because he can. "I'm so tired, oh my god, I hate this place!" I know exactly how he feels. Every breath we take is recorded in this city, but up here, where the wind is so loud and we're so far up, we finally have some freedom.

"Fuck you all!" I scream down at the city. No one even looks up. This sets Peeta into hysterics. I punch him in the shoulder and sit back on the roof. "Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Peeta lies beside me on the concrete. His shirt rides up the tiniest bit. I suddenly really miss Gale's abs.

"It happened in the Ghetto, maybe two years ago. I'd just gotten my driver's permit and we were both really excited," I whisper.

"You and your mother?" Peeta whispers back.

"No, my friend Gale. We were taking it slow on the main street, but I really hit the gas on the backstreets. The Peace Cops never patrol back there, too dangerous. So Gale and I are cruising down the alleys, singing along to Ridin' Dirty, when suddenly there's this _thunk_ and Gale's freaking out, like 'Stop the car! Stop the car!'"

"You hit the Avox girl with your car?" Peeta gasps, but he's also grinning a little, so I know it's okay to keep going.

"No," I laugh, covering my face. "It was worse."

I remember it so clearly now, it's weird that I ever forgot. When I close my eyes, I remember kneeling behind the car, pointing at the poor little animal lying motionless under the back wheel, this red-haired girl running towards us with a curling iron, screaming "You killed Mr. Whiskers! You monsters, you killed him, I'll fucking _kill you!_" at the top of her lungs and Gale dragging me back to the car, screaming "We gotta bounce, Katniss. Bitch, hit the gas! Drive, _drive!" _

"The image of that crazy bitch's face was burned into my mind for weeks after her. I'm surprised she didn't choke me out when she saw me tonight."

Peeta takes in the story, opens his mouth to responds, and busts out laughing instead. "You ran over her _cat? _That's actually evil."

"Shut up," I shove him. "I felt bad about it later."

"I wonder how she ended up here."

I shake my head. "No idea."

"Your friend Gale. He's the one from the Reaping, right?"

"Why, do you know him?"

"Not really," shrugs Peeta. "He's just got really nice abs, is all."

"Yeah, well, an angel came down from heaven and like kissed his tummy when he was little, or something."

Peeta doesn't laugh. I look over and poke him once. He's asleep. It must be almost four by now. I tousle his glorious hair and tip-toe across the roof, back inside.

..

When I open my door, I see the redheaded girl putting away some clean towels and straightening my sheets. It's kind of awkward. I want to say hi or something, but I remember we aren't supposed to talk to Avoxes except to give orders.

"Uh, why don't you take the night off or something? I can put these away."

She gives me a hard look, but nods and walks out, though not before pointing to the memo pad on my bedside table. I kick off my shoes and slip into a soft sleeping gown before falling into bed. When curiosity gets the best of me, I take a peek at the memo pad the Avox left. On the first page, scrawled across the top in red marker are three words:

**fuck you whore**

It's nice to know I have fans in the Capitol.

* * *

_So i herd you liek the Starvelympics? __I've been remaking some old Hunger Games song parodies (Yeah, I'm cool) this week, so check them out on YouTube:_

_youtube .com/watch?v=0xHZp_d3obI_

_youtube .com/watch?v=oOgFjxpb7Lw_

_keep it classy; Alice x_


	14. Chapter 14

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 14**

That night I have nightmares. The angry face of the redheaded girl mixes with the faces of other tributes from tonight's opening ceremony recap show. I see my mother with botox injections and Prim with a spray-tan and grills. I see Gale lighting up a joint as a mockingjay drops dead in a mineshaft. I bolt up screaming for him to put that shit out as the mine explodes into a million shards of crystal dinnerware.

The first light of dawn glows in my window. This early, back home, the district would be abuzz with the sounds of hard work. Here, where everyone sleeps in, the silence of morning is haunting.

I drag myself to the showers, palming whole groups of random buttons on the control panel and spend the next five minutes dodging jets of steaming hot water and floral perfume. I come out smelling like a twat.

There's an outfit waiting for me, set out on the foot of my bed. Tight black pants, a long-sleeved burgundy tunic, and leather boots. I look like Woodland Barbie, but it's the most comfortable I've felt since arriving here. No sex hair, no spandex, no stripper heels. I like it.

Breakfast is an excess of creams and spreads and warm bread and straight-up Eggos. I wonder again about my mother and Prim, back home. Mom's probably splayed out on the couch, making inappropriate comments about Matt Lauer from behind an expired breakfast bar. Prim is probably trying to milk Buttercup or saw a loaf of stale bread into slices. I kind of sort of miss them.

Haymitch and Peeta wander in a while after me, filling their plates and taking their seats and the breakfast table. It makes me irritated that Peeta is wearing the same outfit I am. It looks all wrong on him. The closest he's ever come to the woods is reruns of that one episode of Hannah Montana where she has to go on a camping trip and totally doesn't want to. Plus, these matchy-matchy outfits and cutesy hand-holding act are going to put a bad taste in people's mouths once we start clawing at each other's throats in the arena. Just saying.

I take a bite of toast and a long swig of coffee. I'm only so moody, I guess, because training is going to start soon. All the tributes are supposed to practice their skills together for three days, then perform alone before Capitol judges.

Once Peeta and I are sufficiently fed and Haymitch has topped off his first Tequila Sunrise of the day, he calls a strategy meeting.

"First off, if you like, I'll coach you separately."

I kind of stare at him for a moment. "Why would I want that?"

"Say if you had a secret skill you might not want the other to know about."

I exchange a look with Peeta. "I mean," he shrugs, "there's this one thing I can do with my tongue and a spatula, but…"

Haymitch raises a hand, thank god. It's too early in the morning and I don't want to hurt Peeta's feelings by calling his talents "gay baker stuff" to his face.

"Yeah, coach us together," I nod.

"All right, give me some idea of what you can do," says Haymitch.

"I can't do anything," Peeta sighs. "Just a bunch of gay baker stuff."

I choke back a laugh. Peeta scowls. Haymitch frowns, considering.

"That'll really come in handy if you plan to sexually assault all of the other Tributes, but it sure won't win you any sponsors."

"Look, it'll be hard for all of us in there," I put a hand on Peeta's shoulder. He shrugs it off.

"Oh, please, Katniss. People will help you in the arena. They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you."

I don't get what makes him think that. I must be the least likeable tribute since the Jersey Shore kids were in the second Quarter Quell.

Peeta rolls his eyes at Haymitch. "She has no idea. How slutty she is."

..

I try to ignore the other tributes at the Training Center. Most of them are sickly and underfed like you'd expect, but the Career Tributes – the shitty-looking ones from districts that always have winners – freak me out. They're all hulky and smug, like a catty high school football team. They all give me a once-over as Peeta and I walk over. We're not so dazzling today, without our leather and fire and eyeliner.

Peeta follows me from station to station. I practice tying knots and snares for an hour or so – imagining Madge and Prim in all of them – while Peeta struggles nearby. The tension from this morning hasn't passed, so it's pretty lonely work.

Peeta's having a gay old time at the camouflage station when I join him later. He's painting on his face with mud and clay and berry juices and chatting with the trainer about _Better Homes and Gardens__._

"How'd you get so good?" I ask, examining a design on his arm.

"I frost the cakes at my family's bakery," he admits. "I've had a lot of practice."

I fight the urge to ask if he does the erotic cakes, too.

..

The next three days pass with Peeta and I going quietly from station to station, trying to pick up some new skills. We stop by the unpopular ones, like foraging, famewhoring, and Shania Twain karaoke.

Despite the horrible choice of music, I sound pretty damn awesome.

We are watched constantly by the Gamemakers, sometimes taking notes, other times sitting at a long panel drinking Coke like American Idol judges. They're all standard Capitol hacks, with weird tattoos and freaky beards. I notice they've been watching Peeta and me in particular. I've looked up more than once to see them giving me greasy looks and twirling their mustaches. Their cackling can be heard at all times. Unless they plan to tie us all to train tracks in the arena, I have no idea what they're up to.

Most meals are eaten back in our hotel rooms, but lunch is served buffet-style at the hotel restaurant. The Careers all sit together, and amid their Heathering, I hear one of them call me a grotsky little biotch. Peeta and I sit together and try to keep a friendly conversation going – keeping up Haymitch's Dream Team plans for us, especially when the Gamemakers are watching - but most topics suck when your death is fast approaching. Even discussing trash TV reminds me too much of home.

Once we've given up on having any real conversation, we focus on looking like best friends for our audience. He'll say something like, "Pass the salt," and then, "Now laugh like you like me." Though I doubt my acting fools anyone.

"I can't believe you think I'm slutty," I say. "Now look adoringly at me."

Peeta spreads warm margarine over a fish-shaped break roll. "You're not exactly Mother Teresa." He takes a bite. "Smile wider."

I scowl, but correct my face as a Gamemaker walks by. "You don't know anything about me. I'm not a slut."

Peeta covers his mouth and chuckles like he's just heard a really funny joke.

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 15**

It's not long into the second day of training that I realize we're being followed. Peeta and I are practicing hand-to-hand combat with dummies. We're working on strikes to pressure points and looking like terrible amateurs next to Cato – The District 2 tribute – who's beating the shit out of his dummy, crushing its plastic head and screaming _"LIV IT UP!"_ at the top of his lungs. I suspect he may be mentally unstable, but I can only expect as much from someone who would gladly volunteer for all this.

"I think we have a shadow," notes Peeta, motioning over at a figure in the shadows nearby.

It's the little girl from District 11, sitting alone in a corner with headphones in her ears, watching us. I recognize her from the Reaping recap show. She's only twelve, like Prim, except where Prim was all lipstick and slut skirts, Rue is corn rows and multiple piercings. She looks small and lonely, but her smug look tells me she's street smart. I hear Nicki Minaj blasting from her headphones. I approve.

"I bet you twenty bucks she gets it first," I shrug, to punish Peeta more than because I believe it. And because all this deathmatch training and fake friendship has me in a bad mood.

Now that I've noticed her, though, Rue becomes a constant presence for the rest of the day, lurking in the shadows, mastering skills faster than I can even grasp them, all whilst mumbling along to her music. At the knot-tying station near the end of the day, she raps the whole first verse of Super Bass in one seemingly endless breath, at the same time crafting a flawless rabbit snare.

I drop my string in awe. She is amazing. I want to cry wretched bunny tears. I don't stand a chance.

..

Haymitch and Effie grill us endlessly about our training at dinner. What we did, who watched us, what we noticed. I can barely get a spoonful of nutella into my mouth without having to answer some stupid question about what color some tribute's training clothes were or what their strategy looks like or how I expect to face them in the Games when all I can do is throw knives and shoot arrows and complain about how shitty my life is. Their patience quickly wears thin, but so does mine.

"Could you two get out of my ass for, like, _one second?_" I burst out after an hour of nonstop inquisition.

Effie peers at me like I'm drooling into my bowl of nutella. "Of course not," she scoffs, and barrels on with her inane line of questioning.

..

When I finally escape to bed, Peeta follows.

"She's such a pill," I whine, stopping at my door.

"Someone ought to ice that bitch," he mutters.

Damn. That was funny. My lips twitch; I want to laugh, badly. I want to roll around in a fit of ugly snorty giggles and forget all my worries for just a moment.

But I can't.

Peeta and I are not friends. Despite the fact that his hair is like the melted butter of the gods or the sweet honey of ambrosia, I have to remember that these Games aren't about making friends. At some point I'm going to have to throw him in a meat grinder like that guy in _Fargo_, and laughing at Peeta's jokes isn't going to make that any easier.

"Don't," I sigh. "The cameras are gone, no need to pretend."

Peeta's smile dissolves, as if I've just announced a frosting shortage in District 12. I want to cry howling bunny tears. My life is so hard. "All right, Katniss."

..

The next day is a moody blur. It's a big day, our private sessions with the Gamemakers, where we finally show them our skills and receive scores which really have no bearing on our later success in the Games and therefore don't merit any effort on my part.

Some time after lunch, Peeta is called in to the Gamemakers. I mumble some advice about throwing weights even though I'm sure he'll try to impress the judges with gay baker stuff, despite Haymitch's insistence that there will be no cakes in the arena.

I forget to wish him good luck until he's already gone.

I blink and it's my turn. An official is herding me off to the judging rooms. I try to shake away my lethargic haze, but it sticks to me like a plastic bag on a toddler's face. Does it really matter if I have anything to show for my week of training? They're going to throw me in the arena regardless…

The Gamemakers, feasting behind their judges' table, look deathly bored and unimpressed, having sat through all of the other tributes' acts already. As I survey the weapons in the grand practice arena, I idly wonder if I'm getting depressed. I mean, I'm sort of about to die. They can't really expect me to be sunshine and rainbows about it.

I choose a long metal bow – something you'd never find in District 12 – and aim at the largest dummy, directly before the judges. I miss the first shot, flying meters off the mark. My face burns with embarrassment for a moment, but I quickly adjust for the subtle differences between this bow and mine at home. I hit the same spot – directly in the dummy's heart – six times in a row. The sound of each arrow cutting the air, racing for its target, is the sound of death. For a sixteen-year-old girl from a mining district and no marketable skills, this should be pretty fucking impressive.

But do they notice? No.

While I'm being a gorgeous female Legolas, master of archery and hotness, they're sipping Coke and staring at the roast pig on their banquet table. Why they aren't eating it, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just Randy Jackson passed out on the desk. I clench my fists. I'm being shown up by _Randy Jackson. _I take a deep breath, tapping into my inner bitch, which – honestly – is never that far below the surface, and I give the judges a_ real_ shock.

You know that part at the end of _Carrie_, when the shitty kids pour pig blood on her at the dance? Well.


	16. Chapter 16

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 16**

Needless to say, I didn't actually murder a room full of Gamemakers and Capitol officials, because I'm not the spawn of the devil and therefore possess no demonic mind powers. If I did, my story would have ended the minute Effie Trinket called my slutty little sister's name at the Reaping all that time ago.

I did, however, manage to piss them off a great deal. As they gawked at the fat American Idol judge lying on their desk, I drew back my bow and let it fly directly into the heart of Black Santa Claus himself. Of course, all Capitol officials wear bulletproof gear, so he wasn't killed, but he looked pretty dumb with an arrow sticking out of his chest.

I strode out of the judging room with a badass strut worthy of Aragorn, pushing through both doors at once and leaving those hacks scrambling behind me, but now, alone in the elevator zooming back up to the 12th floor, I start to shake.

I run past Haymitch and Effie, to the safety of my room, my eyes brimming with hideous bunny tears of horror.

_Fuck. _What have I_ done? _Sure, it was worth it to see the looks on the Gamemakers' faces, but now I'm dead for sure. As soon as they have me in the arena, they'll fire all kinds of impossible obstacles at me. It's not like I thought I was going to win the Games anyway, but at least before I had the hope of avoiding a bloody headless stumps-for-arms death. Now it's a certainty.

Haymitch and Effie are knocking on my door, like two divorced parents trying to fake a united front with their moody teenage daughter.

"Katniss, honey, are you alright in there?" asks Effie.

"Go away," I moan, putting my face in a pillow and playing the _New Moon_ movie soundtrack on iTunes at top volume.

"Katniss, you're being completely immature," chides Haymitch.

"_You're not my father!" _I scream through the door, my angst crescendo-ing with the emo pop blasting in the room.

Eventually they leave me to "cry like a bitch", as Haymitch puts it.

After an hour or so of rapid-fire updating my Facebook status with vague depressing song lyrics, I'm over it. I'll deal with the arena when I get there. First I have to deal with the dismal score they're sure to have given me. If Haymitch and Effie don't already know about my little stunt, they will when they see the big fat zero on the announcement show tonight. There's an odd pang in my stomach, like I failed algebra or something.

Because none our training sessions are public, these scores are the audience's first glimpse at our true abilities. Sponsors and rich Capitol housewives will be clamoring to throw money at the high-scorers, and the gambling addicts back home will no doubt be placing bets on the best.

Dinner is an awkward, quiet affair. I mostly take tiny spoonfuls of soup and try to make everyone forget this afternoon with my demonic mind powers that I don't have.

Cinna and Portia join us, chatting about their days and some new girl-on-fire designs they were considering. Effie is wildly enthusiastic, the way she is about everything, but she keeps casting nervous looks over at me.

"Okay, enough small talk," announces Haymitch when the topic turns to Girl On Fire merchandise. "Just how bad were you today?"

The question is clearly for me, but Peeta jumps in anyway. "It probably doesn't matter. By the time I showed up, they were all too bored and distracted to look at me. So I just iced some hearts on a cake until they told me I could go. They might have eaten the cake after I left, though, which could be a good sign."

That makes me feel a bit better. At least Peeta was painfully unimpressive as always.

"And you, sweetheart?" says Haymitch.

His nasty tone on the word 'sweetheart' fires me up. "I killed Randy Jackson."

Effie gasps. Haymitch chokes on some pasta. "You _what?"_

"Well, I didn't really kill him. But I shot him in the heart with an arrow."

"Why would you so such a thing?" Effie asks, the horror in her voice confirming my worse suspicions. But her tone is so annoying that I just have to bait her.

"I think American Idol is stupid."

Effie looks like she's about to cry. "How could you tell such a vicious lie? Everyone loves that show!"

Cinna rolls his eyes, turning to me himself. "Did they say anything after you shot Randy?"

"I mean," I squirm a little. "I don't know, I peaced out after that."

A single tear runs down Effie cheek and Haymitch heaves a sigh of exasperation.

"Well, that's it, then," he goes back to twirling his pasta into a spoon. "You're fucked in the arena."

"Like we weren't fucked already," Peeta smirks.

"Yes, well," Haymitch chuckles. "I'd avoid her like the plague, if I were you."

I crack my first smile all day. Somehow, by being assholes, they have managed to cheer me up.

Despite having daintily twirled his pasta, Haymitch slurps it noisily, stray noodles dangling from his mouth. Effie scoffs with disgust, but she'd probably laugh if she weren't such a prat. Honestly, he looks like the dog from Lady and the Tramp.

"What were their faces like?" he asks, wiping tomato sauce off his nose.

"Pretty dumb, really. Like total hacks. One of them squealed and shrieked that I'd killed an American hero before they realized that he wasn't really dead. Randy was like '_Dawg!' _and almost rolled off the table." Haymitch guffaws and we all start laughing except Effie, who is covering her mouth with napkin, possibly hiding a smile.

"My score's going to suck," I say.

"People only care about the high scores," Portia assures me. "People expect low scores, you're only kids, after all."

God forbid they set up a death match with contestants who can actually defend themselves. Where would the fun in that be?

"If anything, they'll think you messed up on purpose to hide your true talents."

"I hope that's how people interpret the four I'll probably get," says Peeta. No one comments, but it's pretty clear no one at this table thinks his gay baker stuff will get him a four.

…

After dinner, we all go into the sitting room to watch the scores announced on television. Epic music and sparkly effects accompany the display of each tributes scores. The Careers all gets eights and nines, which is expected. The others are less impressive, averaging fives, though Rue pulls a seven. I wonder what she showed the judges. Maybe all of the song "Ridin' Dirty" in one breath.

District 12 comes up last, and we all gasp when Peeta comes away with an eight. For _icing a cake? _Haymitch is seriously side-eyeing him, which confirms my suspicion that Peeta was smearing icing on more than just the cake.

I'm next. I dig my fingernails into my palms as my face comes up. Then the score.

Two thousand three hundred and two

_Two thousand three hundred and two!_

Needless to say, everyone in the room loses their shit.


	17. Chapter 17

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 17**

Peeta asks to be coached separately. Well, first he flips a table and cries for an hour – an unintelligible slur of, "I just- I just_ have_ to do this!", not that I have any idea what he means – and _then _asks to be coached separately.

Total dick move. _Not _that I care or anything. I saw this coming; I knew all that "friendship" shit was an act, but now that he's come right out and said it, well _rude._

Before he runs off to bed, though, he gives me this look. Not _that look_ – not the weird sexy one that started it all the back at the Reaping. I understood _that look. _This look is all sad and stuff, like he's picking out the flowers for a funeral (probably mine) but it's like tearing him apart or something.

He gets my middle finger full in the face before I storm off to my room.

..

The next day is total shit. Not because I feel betrayed, though that tops it off nicely. Today, Effie and Haymitch are training me for my interviews, the last chance to show ourselves off to the Capitol before the Games. It's mostly an excuse for the slutty kids to name-drop celebrities and the meek kids to talk about which charities they're playing for and the occasional crazy kids to jump on furniture and stuff.

Apparently, interviews require "poise" and "stage presence", of which I have none.

Effie drags me through hell all morning, stuffing me in a long gown and high heels and making me walk in lines for hours like I'm one of those prostitots on Toddlers in Tiaras.

I can't imagine how Effie runs around in heels all day. I _cannot._ I'm about to rip them off my feet and chuck them out the window, but then I reason that if I'm Katniss: The Flaming Slut, then I probably have an image to uphold and it probably involves shoes like these.

It's all kind of like the Princess Lessons montage from the Princess Diaries movie, except our moods get progressively blacker as I try and fail at every social grace there ever was.

The worst part is the smiling practice. Effie thinks I don't smile enough, and so makes me practice about a hundred phrases with this stupid grin plastered on my face. By the end of it all, I feel like kicking a puppy just to restore balance to the universe.

"Katniss, you aren't even trying," Effie frowns as I try to say _I wish for world peace!_ with a straight face.

"Maybe I think this is stupid," I huff.

"Maybe you're a—" she catches her breath with a little gasp of frustration, balling up her tiny fists, "—a _twat!_"

I giggle, which probably doesn't help because she stomps out of the parlor and shoves an Avox on her way out. I'm equal parts impressed and disturbed by how quickly my attitude has rubbed off.

Interview training with Haymitch isn't much better. He sits me on a couch in the sitting room and kind of stares at me for a while. I wonder what he's been teaching Peeta all morning, but I don't ask. Instead—

"What are you staring at?"

"I can't think of how to present you. There's a lot of contradictions when it comes to your story. First you volunteered to save your sister—" I don't bother to mention that it was hardly a heroic moment for me "—but then Cinna made you the Flaming Slut of Panem, which is closer to the real you, and now you've got the highest training score in the history of ever. Tomorrow's interview will be the Sponsors' last good look at you before you're in the arena." My stomach drops at that. It's all coming up so fast. Fear tightens my veins and flushes into my face.

Pushing these dark thoughts of my own demise out of my head isn't easy, but it must be done. I think of kittens and puppies and Ryan Reynolds for a moment before zoning back into Haymitch's lecture.

"What's Peeta's approach? Is he going to come out on national television? Start a _Gay Bakers are A-OK_ movement or something? Or am I not allowed to ask?" I say.

Haymitch doesn't laugh. "He's going for likeable. He's got this kind of self-deprecating humor, somewhere between Bo Burnham and Jesse Eisenberg. It works for him." He sighs. "Whereas every time you open your mouth, the cast of the Jersey Shore falls out."

"_Not _true_." _I scowl. I can take most insults, but that was low.

"Please, Katniss. You may make every man in Panem want to do unspeakable things to an underage girl, but you sure as hell don't make them want to throw their money at you. Well, it does. But without the right kind of money, you won't last in the arena."

It's hard to fight with Haymitch when he's mostly right, but I manage to do it anyway.

"I'm not unlikeable!"

"No one knows anything about you! I could ask a hundred questions and all you'd give me is attitude and short glimpses at the ugly festering axwound that is your cold, dead heart!"

"Why should I give people anything else? Does no one understand how it feels to be me right now? I am going to _die _in a matter of _days_ and you two expect me to smile for the cameras? _Fuck _this!"

"_I don't_ _understand_? I've been where you are, so I know. The only way you'll have even the slightest chance is if you _try_ to make a good impression. Just try. Because right now you've got about as much charm as a used tampon."

I try. I really do. Haymitch grills me for hours, asking about Prim and District 12 and my favorite TV shows and if I thought The King's Speech was overrated and if I think Leo DiCaprio will ever win an Oscar, but I _can't_. I can't force myself to be open with a country full of heartless hacks who only want to place bets on how many breaths I can take before I explode or drown or starve or _worse._ Eventually, Haymitch gives up. He sends me up to my room so he can mix up some screwdrivers and sleep till New Year's. I spend a few minutes on the couch with my head in my hands. Bunny tears threaten to spill down my cheeks. This is all too shitty.

Why does no one understand that I _seriously don't want to be here?_ Why won't someone get me out?


	18. Chapter 18

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 18**

It's pretty much Valentine's Day in my room that evening, in that I order a shit-ton of room service and watch Sleepless in Seattle while sobbing into a carton of Ben & Jerry's and screaming at anyone who disturbs me. I make art on the floor after shotgunning three 4 Lokos in less than an hour and then I smash some plates against the people-watching window for good measure. It zooms in on my face and calls me a "damn fool" before commenting nastily on how gorgeous I'd look with a nose job. Bitch.

When the Avox girl barges in to deliver my nightclothes, I explode at her.

"Just leave them!" I yell. "Leave me alone!"

I hate her, and I know she hates me. She's smirking, arms crossed as I lie in a heap on the floor. I'm glad I killed her fucking cat. The Avox leaves, but not before setting a bit of lined paper atop my folded nightgown.

Bleary-eyed and red-faced, I take a deep breath and sit up. It's late and my temper-tantrum has completely drained me of energy.

I'm an idiot to look at the note, but curiosity gets the best of me. Just like before, three words are scrawled across the page in red marker:

**sucks to suck**

A normal person would start crying again. She would crumple into a heap or jump out the window or just give up. But I'm a girl from the ghetto of District 12, named after a tough root and born on a thick bed of coal dust. I am Katniss fucking Everdeen and nothing, _nothing _pushes me forward more than the haters.

I stand, storming out of my room after the Avox girl. Waiting for an elevator, she's startled by my sudden presence in the dark hallway. I don't even hesitate. I wind back my fist and haul into her face.

"Talk shit, get hit, you _ginger!_"

She recovers quickly, cradling her nose, but doesn't hit back. She can't. She can't even scream back, without a tongue. The elevator comes and she scurries in, shooting straight down to the lobby.

A vicious grin crawls onto my face and I strut back to my room, rubbing my aching fist.

The bitch is back. Kicking ass and taking names. Fuck the interviews, I'm going to win this whole thing with or without sponsors and then I'm going to walk right up to President Snow and spit in his face. And it will be glorious.

That night, I sleep like a baby.

..

The next day is the first day of the rest of my life. Which, over the course of the night, I reason probably won't be very long. Despite my confidence last night, I've resigned myself to fact that I'm probably going to get it good in the arena, but I plan to go out in flames.

And if Cinna has his way, I'm going to look fabulous. I don't have to deal with Haymitch or Effie all day. This is Cinna's last chance to doll my up, and that he does. He and his team work late into the afternoon fucking with my facial climate and ripping my hair from its roots and – for the first time – it's totally fine with me. They stencil patterns on my arms and paint flames onto my nails and, frankly, it looks awesome. I look half-punk, half-phoenix. Venia weaves red ribbons into my hair, creating one long flickering plait that rests on my right shoulder. They 3D Photoshop my face, brightening my skin tones and adjusting the color balance on my makeup. My eyes look huge, my lips are full and red, and my lashes throw off bits of light when I blink. They top off the whole effect by covering my whole body in gold dust.

Cinna makes me close my eyes as he slips the dress down over my body. It's heavy as fuck, which makes no sense. But I don't open my eyes until I've stepped into my heels. Eyes darting all over my reflection, I am completely overwhelmed. I look like a creature from another planet. My dress is covered entirely in reflective gems, red and yellow and white with bits of blue accenting a flame design. I look like the unholy spawn of Kesha and Jennifer Lawerence and I've never seen anything more fascinating.

I am not pretty. I'm not even the flaming slut of Panem. Baby, I'm a _firework._

Bunny tears are an understatement. If it wouldn't ruin my makeup, I would be sobbing the glorious tears of a leporine warrior. "Oh, Cinna." I finally whisper. "Thank you."

"Twirl for me?" he asks. I hold my arms and spin in a circle. I am like a living music box, twirling to the dirge of the apocalypse. The prep team screams in admiration.

Cinna dismisses them eventually to give me private encouragement. He produces a white rolled blunt and flicks a lighter, passing it to me with a smile.

"All ready for the interview then?" he asks. He's so chill about it that I'm not sure if he's spoken with Haymitch yet. Would he sound so calm if he new what a disaster I was?

"Haymitch thinks I'm terrible," I admit. I could lie, but I feel like Cinna's one of the only people I can be honest with. "I just can't force myself to pretend I'm okay with all this. He says I'm sullen and hostile."

Cinna considers this, crossing his arms. "You are, around Haymitch," he grins. "But so is everyone. People in the Capitol? They love you. The prep team adores you. _I _adore you. Even the Gamemakers bought your charm. You're all they talk about on the news and the you're blowing up all the fashion blogs. People might not think you're cute or nice or sweet, but they admire your spirit. You have so much potential for greatness within you, even if you try to hide it. It burns through you like an inferno, and everyone sees it."

Fuck, I'm blushing. I'll never admit it, but his words have kindled something within me. Like after that punch last night, I am filled with pure energy. Cinna called me an inferno? Nah, I'm a fucking _supernova._

"You might think you have no friends in the Capitol, and that may be true," Cinna continues. "But when you're up at that stage, disgusted by the screaming audience and Caesar Flickerman showering you with inane questions, look right at me. _I _am your friend, Katniss." He gives me a little punch in the arm. "Even when you can't be honest with him, you can be honest with _me_."

I almost choke on my words. "Even if what I think is horrible?" Which it surely will be.

"_Especially_ if it's horrible. Hon, that's what you do best."

I'm supposed to say_, I'll try my best_ or even just _Okay_, but I can't speak. For the first time in my life, words stick in my throat and I can do nothing but pull Cinna into my arms and squeeze the life out of him. My grip on his shoulders is so strong, I swear I draw blood. It's not like licking Gale's holy abs or nuzzling Peeta's sex-hair or even getting a kiss on the cheek from fucking Madge back home, but this hug is that only thing I have right now. Just like before, My Tall Dark Gay Jesus has become my only salvation.

By the time an official drops by to tell us it's time to go – and we both promptly greet him with middle fingers – I am prepared for anything.

Live die win lose, I can take it all. Cinna eventually herds me out to meet the other tributes in a waiting area near the interview stage. He gives me one last wink and disappears into the crowd. I ball my hands into a fist and force myself to smile.

"I am Katniss fucking Everdeen," I whisper to no one and everyone. "And you're going to love me whether you like it or not."


	19. Chapter 19

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 19**

The interviews are a weird mix between an elementary school music show and a talk show – alternating between Jay Leno and Wendy Williams every few minutes. Before we're herded on stage, Haymitch drops by long enough to appraise Peeta and me and then practically cauterize our hands together.

"Remember," begins his last words before leaving. "You're still a happy pair. So act like it."

I shoot Peeta some serious side-eye, but he doesn't react. I don't get it; I thought we'd abandoned our matchy-matchy best friend act yesterday during training. Or maybe the act is all that's left.

I don't get a chance to breach the issue. We're only seated on stage for about a minute before the stage lights flare up and the cameras start rolling and the show begins. I feel like I might drown in my own sweat, my head swimming and my pulse flooding my ears. I don't calm down until the first tribute is called. We're going in District order, as always, so Peeta and I are last. Which means we have to sit through two hours of charismatic, oversexed, tough-as-nails, and some just plain crazy tributes as they show their best faces to the Capitol and the world at large. At least, I reason, the audience will be so bored by my turn that they'll completely tune me out.

The audience is a sea of strangers, for the most part, though I see that they've placed all of the Districts' stylists in the front row. My own Pretty Committee sit, giggling with nerves and excitement, right at the center. Cinna is popping Tic-Tacs, looking terribly unimpressed by the gold see-through gown the District 1 girl is wearing. Clearly, she is a slut. Or, at least, that's her angle for the Games.

Caesar Flickerman, MC of the Hunger Games since before I was born, is back this year with a new look. He's going through a blue period, his hair and lips a powdered aqua. Cinna said he's been depressed ever since Ryan Seacrest dumped him for a younger man. If it's true, you'd never know it. Tonight, Caesar's every bit the powerhouse of entertainment gold that he is every year. His smile is like the sun, partly because it's so wide and exuberant and partly because he has a live-in oral hygienist.

Caesar Flickerman may be a heinous hack like all the rest, but I'll admit he knows how to draw the personality out of each tribute. He acts like best pals with all of them, laughing at a District 3 kid's dead baby jokes and saving the District 4 girl's lame responses by howling, "That's what she said!" at every opportunity, sending the audience into hysterics and applause.

I cross my legs like Effie taught me and listen politely. The districts fly by as each tribute presents his angle. The giant kid from District 2 is a fucking badass. The fox-faced girl from District 5 is a cutthroat bitch. The geeky boy from District 5 is a shitty nerd. Every demographic is represented in some form. It's like Mean Girls, except Cady actually does push Regina in front of that bus.

The crippled boy from 10 is so quiet and unlikeable and crippled that he might as well jump off the stage and end it right now. My palms are sweating. My brain is screaming. Even the snide comments running through my head can't distract me from what's approaching.

Rue, the girl from District 11, is possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. And I think I'm pretty damn cute. She's in this gossamer gown with wings, which would look like a tacky Halloween costume on anyone but her. She moves across the stage in silence, like a little bird or something. She looks so drastically different than usual that I blink a few times. Judging by the total silence from the audience, they're doing the same. Her corn rows and piercings are there, but the iPod is stashed away and her cheeks are all rosy and her confidence is unsettling but also endearing and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Caesar jumps right into his questions, smiling at her like she's Black Shirley Temple. The interview is high energy and rapid-fire, like a Saturday morning cartoon. In less than thirty seconds we know her favorite artist (Kanye West), favorite movie (Love and Basketball), favorite TV Show (Real Housewives of Atlanta, which – incidentally – is in District 11), and how many Tyler Perry movies she's seen (all of them). By that point, both Rue and Caesar are giggling like they're in a cereal commercial or something and the crowd is eating it up. I kind of am, too. I mean, she's more than just cute or funny or little. She's awesome.

Right at the end, Caesar asks what she thinks her biggest strength will be. She smiles and talks about how she's been running from the cops for years, so she'll be hard to catch. "If the Peace Cops outside of 7-11 couldn't get me, neither can any of these hacks."

Caesar contorts his face into this ridiculous scandalized expression, and a line that could have been wildly offensive becomes hilarious to the audience, who laugh and cheer for Rue, the crowd favorite.

I smile a little, as impressed with Rue's spunk as the rest of Panem. And then they call my name: Katniss Everdeen.

_No_, I think. _Katniss _Fucking_ Everdeen. I am an unstoppable force of nature._

Laugh all you want, but it works. The ego boost brings me to my feet, making my way to center stage, shaking Caesar's hand with my own sweaty one.

"So, Katniss, the Capitol must be quite a change from District Twelve. What's impressed you most since you got here?" asks Caesar.

My brain sparks like a frayed wire. What did he say? Impressed?

My eyes shoot desperately to Cinna. He smiles, so calm, as if he doesn't notice me unraveling onstage. I imagine him saying the words. "What's _impressed _you most since you got here?" God, I almost laugh, I can _hear_ the sarcasm and derision he'd say it with. Somehow Caesar, genius among men, sees something in my eye. Some tiny thing that clues him in. He winks and I just know he's got me pegged.

"Nothing, Katniss? Sure this place doesn't _totally_ suck," he chuckles. The audience roars with laughter, partly shocked that he'd say something so risqué.

I smirk. My stomach is jelly and I'm sweating again, but I push through it and force the cool look onto my face. Be honest, be honest, be honest. I repeat it in my head like a mantra. "Well, I guess I like the lamb stew."

Caesar claps his hands together like I've delivered the perfect punchline. He looks out to the audience and gives this look that positively screams, "_Can you believe this bitch? She's almost as sassy as me!"_

I don't think Caesar Flickerman can possibly be human. He must be a robot programmed by the Capitol for these interviews alone. Because what human being could so flawlessly turn dull-black-heart Katniss into the funny, snarky girl people are clapping for?

When the laughter dies down, he continues. "The one with the dried plums? That stuff's duhh-_licious_. I eat it by the bucketful." He shoots a winning smile at some guys in the front row. "But I still look hot, right?"

In unison, they scream: "_WE LOVE YOU SEE-ZURRR!"_

"Now, Katniss," he drops his voice, like we're sharing secrets. "When I saw you come out at the opening ceremonies, I absolutely _died_. What did you think of that costume?"

"You mean after I got over my fear of massive wardrobe malfunction?" I ask.

Big response from the audience. They're grinning like crazy, like they know me. It's equal parts exhilarating and disturbing to captivate the full attention of thousands of people at once.

I laugh like I'm remembering something funny, then, more seriously. "Honestly, I thought Cinna was crazy brilliant and it was the most gorgeous thing I ever saw. I mean, look at this dress! I feel _radioactive._ It's so amazing I could die!"

I don't even mean to make that last joke, it just comes out like ironic brilliance spilling out my ears. The audience is oohing and ahhing at my dress and, catching Cinna's eye and the circular motion he's making with his finger, I stand and twirl like Judy Garland in the fucking Sound of Music.

I feel stupid and I look stupid, but it's the radiant kind of stupid twirling that little girls at home are probably marveling at and making little animated gifs of to put on their blogs later. When I stop, I clutch Caesar's arm.

"Oh, don't stop!"

"I have to, I'll puke if I don't!"

Caesar and I dissolve into raucous laughter and I feel like I'm on drugs and the world doesn't exist and this must be what fame is like and it's too bad that these three minutes are all I get.

"Are you _sure_ you haven't gotten into your mentor's secret stash?" He mimes drinking with his thumb and pinkie finger. The cameras zoom in on Haymitch, who sticks out his tongue, eliciting new waves of hysteria from those watching.

We sit back down and I know Caesar wants to ask more questions, but the buzzer goes off. Time's up. I survived. I had _fun_.

"It seems we're out of time, Miss Everdeen, but best of luck to you."

I give an obnoxious bow and my applause continues long after I sit back down with the other Tributes. I take a deep breath once back in the shadows. If nothing else, I have cleared this one hurdle. Tonight, at least, the drama is done.

I'm in a daze for the beginning of Peeta's interview. The audience loves him immediately. He was made for comedy. He makes all these jokes about the hardships of District 12 and having to do October Sky for the class play every year and wipe coal dust off of _every flat surface_ and sing dumb songs about a country road in some place called "West Virginia" and even I crack up a little at that.

Then Caesar asks if he's got a girlfriend back home. He hesitates, and I'm surprised he doesn't have a joke prepared for that. He shakes his head sadly, and I'm instantly confused.

"A hot piece like you?" [Audience laughter] "There must be some special girl. Come _on, _tell me!"

Enthusiasm explodes within Peeta. I'm completely taken aback by the excitement with which he starts spilling out secrets. "Well, there's this one girl. She's really cool and I've had a crush on her since forever. But she probably didn't even know I was alive until the Reaping."

Sighs erupt from the cloud. The group of admiring gays in the front row place their hands over their hearts and scream: "_WE'LL TAKE YOU, PEE-TAH!"_

"She's already taken?" Caesar asks.

"I don't know, she's gorgeous, so maybe. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. She's incredible! She can sing and dance and fight and laugh and she's the prettiest thing I ever saw in my whole life!"

Who the hell is he talking about? I hardly know any of the girls outside of the Ghetto. Except Madge. Is he talking about _Madge? _The_ lesbian?_

"Wow, this girl sounds marvelous! Does she have a sister for me?" Caesar matches Peeta's energy.

Peeta laughs. "She's probably way too young for you."

The audience laughs at Caesar's naughty look. "But tell me more! If she's watching now, which I'm _sure she is_, what would you want her to know?" he asks.

Peeta grins and suddenly stands. I blink. What the fuck is this.

"I don't even know how to explain!" The crowd swoons, in love with Peeta and his bleeding heart. "I...I love her! I _love her!_"

And then, I shit you not, Peeta Mellark is jumping on the couch. He's suddenly Tom fucking Cruise and I have never seen him emote so much in my life.. "I love her I love her _I LOVE HER!"_

The audience loses its shit. Laughter and cheers and applause for young love comes from every direction. I must say, I'm impressed by the show. Peeta and I have done perfectly tonight. Haymitch will probably throw us a party.

"Well, here's your plan," beams Caesar. "Win the Games, go home, and sweep her off her feet! She can't turn you down then!" Caesar gives him a little punch on the arm falls back into his seat. And then, something even weirder happens.

Peeta's face falls further than Chris Brown's records sales in 2009. It's like Caesar just told him that Christmas is canceled, it's _his fault_, and his parents are Satan-worshipping cousins who made weird videos of him in his sleep when he was little. He looks like he's about to scream or cry.

"That wouldn't work. Winning…would be the worst thing possible for me," says Peeta.

Caesar looks genuinely shocked for the first time _ever_. "Why ever not?" he gasps for breath, as unable to keep up with his moods swings as me.

Peeta flushes dark red, like he's about to bleed out of every pore in his face.

"Because…because…she came here with me."

The crowd is silent. Caesar Flickerman is silent. All of Panem is silent in that moment. And all of Panem is staring at _me._

Mother_fuck._


	20. Chapter 20

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 20**

Sometimes I lie awake thinking of life's questions. Like, is Panem the only country left on earth? What happened to everyone else? Are they having fun and celebrating America finally getting what it deserves or have they sunk into the ocean? Like, do all the Asians live in District 5 because it manufactures the country's electronics, or does it manufacture electronics because it's full of Asians? Where did all the Mexicans go? Things like that.

As I sit on the stage, watching my own eyes bug out on national TV, I consider the questions I'll be mulling over tonight: Like, What the fuck is Peeta doing? Who does he think he is? Will I lose fans if I _skin him alive_ _before the Games?_

"Oh dear, that is a piece of bad luck," says Caesar, sounding genuinely dismayed by this development.

"No shit," agrees Peeta, pointedly avoiding my gaze.

"Well, I don't think any of us can blame you. It'd be hard not to fall for that young lady." I almost snort at the phrase 'young lady' being used to describe me. "And she really had no idea?"

Peeta shakes his head. "Not until now."

I'm tempted to raise my middle finger when the camera pans over me, but I puff out my cheeks instead.

"Aw, let's get Katniss back on stage to comment!" Peeta's eyes widen and I begin furiously shaking my head, so it's good luck that Caesar's earpiece start screeching at that moment. "-Oh, oh, we can't do that? Nevermind, then! Best of luck to you Peeta," he says in the same tone in which one might say '_Sucks to suck!'_

The crowd goes apeshit, of course. Their undying enthusiasm is starting to grate on my nerves. And of course every camera, even during the fucking national anthem, is trained on me. Why does every interview have to end with an eight-minute standing ovation? Why doesn't the audience even bat an eye at the idea of children slaughtering each other until one of them develops a crush? And if they're really so teary-eyed about these too poor tragic lovers – who didn't even exist until five minutes ago – why don't they demand that the Games be cancelled?

Because they're assholes, that's why. These Capitol hacks may go nuts for a love story, but in the end they still want to see us get shot in the face. So then what is the point of this whole drama?

We're filed back into the Training Center as soon as the show ends. I take the first elevator, pushing ahead of the shitty nerd from Five, knowing that our stylists and mentors and chaperones will be caught up in the crowd outside. I get off on the twelfth floor and wait for Peeta's car to arrive.

The minute he steps out, I shove him with both hands. Then I kick him in the chest. And step on his fingers. And call him a bitch.

Peeta sucks in his breath. "You're a _fuckin' lunatic_, real or not real?"

"How _dare _you!" I shout, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. "You're totally _sick_, making shit up like that!"

I'm gripping his hair, crushing his face into the carpet when Effie, Haytmich, Cinna, and Portia arrive.

"What on earth are you doing to his lovely hair?" says Effie, taking in the broken vase and the blood and the wild look in my eyes. "Did you two fall?"

Everyone takes a minute to shoot withering looks at D-T-Effie, who's probably never witnessed a fight firsthand in her whole life. Unless you count twenty years of the Starvelympics, which no one ever seems to.

Haymitch turns on me. "What the hell has gotten into you?"

I jab a finger at him, loosening my grip on Peeta's angel hair. "Was this _your idea_, making me look like Bella fucking Swan in front of the whole country?"

"It was my idea," Peeta croaks from the floor, clutching his chest and grimacing. "Haymitch just helped."

"Oh, _of course_. What's your agreement: steamy late-night shower dates in exchange for his _special attention_?"

"You're an idiot! Peeta's done nothing but help you tonight! He's taken you from the next star of Teen Mom to the one hot chick left on The Bachelor. Now everyone thinks you're the holy love child of Juliet and Allie Hamilton! You're the two sad gay guys from Brokeback Mountain! People are crying in the streets for you, so you should be showing Peeta some appreciation!"

"This is bullshit," I huff.

Haymitch takes three big steps towards me, grabbing me and Peeta by our shirts. When he has us facing each other, he orders: "Katniss, apologize to Peeta."

"What? Fuck, no. I have a right to be angry about this!"

Peets sniffs, and blood trickles from his nose. "She's right, this is stupid. She's just worried about her boyfriend, Sex God Gale."

I cringe for a moment at the nickname. How could he know? Has he been reading my diary? "He's not my boyfriend!"

"Ah, of course not, just friends with benefits. Whatever, he's smart enough to spot a bluff when he sees it. It's not like you stripped naked a gave me a lapdance, so what does it matter?"

My anger cools before my mind catches up with this logic of Peeta's ploy. Haymitch is right, for all his snideness. My interview was fine on its own, but people probably only remember me twirling around in that sparkling dress. And the audience shat itself when Peeta declared his love for me. I mean, it's a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl ignores boy for five years, girl and boy have to fight to the death for food. At least I'm pretty sure that's what Romeo and Juliet's about.

"Was my reaction even believable?" I appeal to Cinna and Portia.

Cinna smiles. Portia chimes in, "I did! The way your eyes dilated and your breath caught."

Yeah, okay, Portia. But the others all show signs of agreement, so I'm satisfied.

And then I feel shitty about beating the living fuck out of Peeta.

"Sorry I shoved you," I mutter, dabbing at his bloody nose with my sleeve.

"It's no big," he shrugs. "Though I think that's illegal."

"Think they'll disqualify us? Call our parents and make us go home?"

We both cackle unattractively. Peeta gives me a warm smile, only marred by the cut on his lip. I scrunch up my face until he busts out laughing and give him an obnoxious kiss on the sore spot. Then Portia and Cinna join in chuckling.

Why don't we deserve to be young and silly just because we weren't born in Capitol? Why did we have to be chosen to die for the fuck ups of generations past? How is it possible that I can feel equal parts affection and mistrust for Peeta, punctuated by outbursts of hatred and friendship? How can the Flaming Slut of Panem and the sparkling firework and Lovestruck Juliet all fit into one body?

I add these to my list of life's questions as we sit down to dinner as a group. Likely the last full meal I will ever eat.

..

**A/N:** So heyy guys. Y'all should check out my youtube channel, 'cause I recently released and album of Hunger Games song parodies on iTunes and everyone should buy them (JK, but actually). Can't post a proper link, but head over to **youtube . com ****/alicecullengirl **to check it out :)


	21. Chapter 21

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 21**

Dinner is a quiet affair, as the reality of tomorrow starts to sink in. We watch the interview recap show, all either too exhausted or too uncomfortable to look each other in the eye. Seeing myself on the screen, I look like a bubbly Chloe Moretz, dolled up in my flowy dress but also snarky and charming. Peeta looks like a sweaty Ryan Gosling compared to me. The crowd is fixed on his flowing golden locks and I swear panties are dropping nationwide.

The room is silent when the show is over. Tomorrow is the big big day, as Effie would say. Tomorrow will likely be the last day of my life. There is suddenly not enough air in the room. In the world. I take a furtive look around at my companions, my little team, the sort-of family we've become over the last week. We won't see Haymitch and Effie after this; they'll be at Games HQ, telling everyone how awesome and sexy we are in a mad rush to get sponsors. Cinna and Portia will be with us until the last minute, always on hand to touch up our makeup in case we suddenly burst out in tears just before showtime.

So this is goodbye.

Effie stands and takes both of us by the hand, all teary-eyed, wishing us the best in the Games. I bite my lip. I mean, I know I've spent the last week calling her a pasty bimbo with instant noodles for brains and a promising future in cheap porno, but she's kissing our cheeks and telling us how she'll never forget us and it's kind of killing me inside. A little.

Haymitch, true to form, crosses his arms and smirks at us.

"Is this where you tell us to be ourselves and try our very best?" asks Peeta.

"This is where I tell you that if you don't run straight for the woods as soon as the gong sounds, they'll be sending you home in pieces. Neither of you is up to the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, so you're better off searching for water."

"And after that?" I ask.

"Don't get dead," says Haymitch.

..

The hot water in the shower is glorious. The gold paint, makeup, and perfume all melt from my skin, revealing my smoldering pink flesh beneath. I leave the flames on my nails, cause they'll remind the audience of the flowy dress and possibly get me some sponsors. That, and if I have to die, I want to leave a gorgeous corpse.

Sleep is obviously not going to happen tonight. Drowsiness is pretty much a death sentence in the arena, but how am I supposed to just close my eyes and count sheep at this point?

I lie in bed as my mind races erratically, refusing to calm down. I think of the terrain in the arena. Who'll target me first. How many episodes of Jerry Springer I'll miss. I have to sleep. I can't sleep. I _have to sleep_. I want to cry. I wonder if the other tributes are lying awake too. Is this what the Capitol wants? Twenty-four children mentally destroyed for the entertainment of the people?

It's about three a.m. when I give up on sleep entirely. I slide out of bed, tip-toeing into the hallway. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, but I follow the hall until I reach the door to roof. To my surprise, it's open.

The wind instantly throws my hair into disarray. I imagine years of scared tributes climbing up to this very spot, hoping to jump to their deaths only to be caught by the energy field below. I, of course, am not up here to jump. I thought – and don't laugh okay? – that maybe if I could see the stars up here, I'd feel closer to District 12 and my shitty mom and Prick Duck Prim and all those people I hate but I guess not really.

I see Peeta immediately. His silhouette sits hunched near the edge, overlooking the Capitol, which continues to buzz and party despite the time. He's rocking side to side a bit, and at first I think he's crying again. It's kind of awk and I'm about to tiptoe away when I see the headphones in his ears.

"What is that?" I ask. Peeta stiffens, but relaxes as I step into the light.

"Oh," he pauses his iPod. "I was talking to Rue at training the other day," he shrugs. "She recommended this Flo Rida song, and it's been in my head ever since."

I sit beside him, taking an earbud and sampling about 30 seconds of the song. There's a heavy focus on brand-name jeans and "hitting the flo'", but the beat is awfully catchy, and soon the lyrics are in my head, too.

The music is a comforting excuse not to talk about the upcoming horrors of the Games, but the thoughts creep back in as the song fades out. Was that the last song I'll ever hear? Will any of these lyrics be of help in the Games? Maybe there'll be a poisonous limbo stick, and I'll have to "get low" to get by? Will I be humming this to myself as I cut through dense forests or swim across coursing rivers?

As the city roars below, our silence betrays our fear.

"So this is our goodbye party." Peeta sweeps a hand across the scene below, tiny ants milling through the square, hollering and whooping or staring at the giant screens recapping tonight's interviews, placing bets and calculating odds. Each of them sucking more than the last.

"Some party, they're having all the fun."

Peeta's chuckle is weak and mirthless.

"You know, I really am sorry about kicking you in the chest. And grinding your face into the ground—"

"And stepping on my fingers?" he asks, waggling one bandaged hand at me.

"No, you deserved that," I laugh.

"Well, I'm probably gonna croak the first day, anyway," Peeta shrugs. "So it's no big deal."

I punch him lightly on the arm. "Psh, I'll be dead in the first hour. Nah, strike that, I bet fifteen minutes."

Peeta points far below, at an ant with spiky green hair. "See that guy? He's betting fifty bucks that I fall off the platform before the countdown even ends."

I circle a group of bouncing red dots by the giant screens. "Those bitches are pooling their life savings to bet that I suffocate in the tube."

"Hey!" Peeta screams down at the crowd, lightyears away. "Have some respect! Fuck you!"

"Fuck the Capitol!" I join in, giggling.

"_FUCK THE GAMES!" _we chant together, in stitches, sighing after a full minute of snorty guffaws. How can Peeta and I transition so seamlessly from enemies to friends? Is it his hair?

"Katniss, I." He stops, the restarts as the silence closes in on us again. "Remember last season of _Survivor_, when they tried to make that guy eat this wriggling lizard, and they said they'd execute him if he didn't because ratings were in the toilet that year and that's President Snow's favorite show?"

No. "Yeah."

"Well, after a while he was like 'Fuck that noise' and he marched right off a cliff rather than eat it."

Oh, I _do _remember that. Because I recall thinking that Survivor: Yosemite was their dumbest idea yet. I nod along to Peeta's story.

"Well, sometimes I feel like that guy. These Games are meant to take the humble children of Panem and turn them into bloodthirsty monsters before painting a cage of horrors with their blood. I don't want to die a wild animal, foaming at the mouth just for the Capitol's entertainment."

Someone's been listening to My Chemical Romance before bed, I can tell.

"What, are you saying you won't kill anyone? Just cross your legs and meditate on your platform while the rest of us go at it?"

Peeta grumbles, "No, I'm not stupid. I just, I don't know, want to show the Capitol that they don't own me. That I'm not just another piece in their games."

I raise an eyebrow. "But you are."

"I know," he sighs, "But I'm not—"

"You are, though."

"But I—"

"We all are."

"But—"

"Peeta."

"But—"

"You're a piece."

Peeta rolls his eyes, pulling at his glorious hair. "You know, you'll probably do just fine in the arena. You've got a killer instinct and you're kind of a trip. Give my mother my best when you get back home. Or don't. She's a total bitch, too." Peeta opens his mouth to spit some other insults at me, but instead just grumbles, "Have a nice life."

Peeta stomps off the roof. I consider calling him back. This is, after all, the last time I'll see him before we're in the arena, and I don't need another enemy. But by the time I can swallow my pride and call out to him, he's long gone.


	22. Chapter 22

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 22**

I don't see Peeta the next morning. I don't really care, but I do kind of care. I would be nice to see at least his friendly face before the Games, even if he still pissed after last night. I wake after twenty minutes of fitful sleep and groggily follow Cinna up to the roof, where a hovercraft waits to jet us off to the preparation area beneath the arena.

My hands and feet freeze on the ladder that drops down, and I'm about to spaz the fuck out when I realize that I'm being held by a current, holding me safely in place as the ladder is lifted into the giant airship. I feel like I'm about to be launched into outer space, like this is Star Wars and I'll be handed a lightsaber at any minute. _Katniss, use the force…to murder innocent children for our entertainment!_

I flinch away from a creepy woman in a white coat, wielding a giant syringe. "It's just your tracker, Katniss. Stay still so I can insert this into your arm."

She jabs me with the thing, and I'm like _OH MY GOD OW_, but the pain recedes almost immediately. Awesome. If the Capitol couldn't already monitor my every move, they sure can now. Cameras are already buzzing around the hovercraft, gathering footage for commercial breaks and the _Dead Tributes: Greatest Hits_ clip show at the end. Do they really capture every second of the Games? What if I squat to pee behind a tree and my ass gets broadcast live to all of Panem? Knowing me, it'll happen at least twice.

Breakfast is laid out on a grand table in the next room, and I force myself to gorge on everything. It's some of the richest food I've had since arriving in the Capitol, but I'm so nervous I barely taste it as it goes down. I have no idea when or if I'll ever eat again. At least on _Survivor: Yosemite, _the contestants knew where they were going and what to expect. As the windows black out, I realize I have absolutely no concept of what this year's arena will hold. Just watch it be an empty school gym with nothing but rusty water fountains and abandoned lunchboxes full old moldy sandwiches to fight over. I laugh at that mental image, but choke on a slice of angel food cake. I can only hope our arena is that good.

We land in a weird bunker, and I am immediately herded into a prep chamber called a Launch Room, which supports my theory that we've been launched into space (especially when I see the tube that will lift me up into the arena when the time comes: _Beam me up, Scotty!_) This place is so fancy; even moreso than the Training Center. Apparently the arenas are major summer travel destinations for Capitol families. Kids like jump up and down when their parents tell them:_ This year we're going to the site of the 68__th__ Hunger Games – remember the year when the volcano exploded and the ash melted all those kids' faces off?_ And the kids scream _YAAAAY those were my favorite Games!_

The thought of anyone wanting to tour a place like this, to take pictures next to bloodstained boulders, buy fake District tokens from the gift shop, buy the _Greatest Hits_ DVD box-set. It's too messed up. The thought of anyone having a "favorite Games" make me want to vomit.

I shower, I brush my teeth, I keep my breakfast down. Cinna combs and braids my hair in one plait down the back, he helps me into my outfit, he advises me on possible weather conditions in the arena. We are machines at work, unable to turn on our emotion lest we explode in a shower of gold sparks. I'm past admitting I'm scared at this point. It's obvious. Anyone who wouldn't be scared right now is a fucking Antichrist.

I think this is it when Cinna pulls my gold mockingjay pin from his pocket. Where I thought every part of my old life was lost, this stupid pin, a token of Madge's huge lesbian crush on me, is still around. A smile, alien though it must look on my pale face, worms its way onto my lips. I remember Madge planting that kiss on my cheek. I remember skipping through town with Gale after school, chanting _VADGE BADGE MADGE VADGE BADGE MADGE_ at top-volume until she'd start crying and run home. I miss our shenanigans. I've been trying not to think of home or Gale or anything, because I thought it'd bring on the waterworks like whoa. But it gives me a little fire, like I can do this. I may hate my shitty district and the life I had, but I will fight to the fucking death to get back there.

I hold the pin in my palm, and listen to this: I swear before Cinna and baby Jesus and all of Panem that if I ever get back home, I'll kiss that dumb bitch Madge right on the mouth. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Cinna affixes the little pin to my jacket. I kind of wish I was going up right this second, while adrenaline and self-righteousness still pumps through my veins. The longer we wait, though, sipping water and contemplating my five-minute future, the closer back to earth I sink.

"Want to talk, Katniss?" Cinna asks.

I don't want to hear about what strategies I'm supposed to take. I don't want to hear any more advice about finding water or all that shit I already know.

I hold out my hand to Cinna, and he holds it firm in his own. When a voice comes in from the speaker, announcing five minutes to launch. "I want to talk about Jerry Springer. I missed the last episode."

Cinna's smile is a pitiful thing, but I pretend not to see the hard lines of grief scoring his features. "Okay," he breathes. "I watched it on mute, so I didn't catch the details." A single tear escapes down his cheek. "Brianna – remember her, the girl whose twins had two different fathers? She brought in her own brother as a possible baby-daddy. You should've seen him, he had this awful lazy eye and spoke this terrible English. Someone should slap his parents."

A hollow laugh escapes me. "Was he the father?"

Cinna chuckles. "Oh, god no. I don't think we'll ever know which of Brianna's fourteen boyfriends it is. Or maybe that'll be the season finale."

My smile fades. "I'll probably never see it," I whisper.

A breath rushes out of Cinna and he crushes me in a hug. "Oh Katniss. I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, I'd put it all on you."

"Really?"

"I'd borrow all the money in the world to put on you. I'd rob everyone on my block to bet on you. I'd murder entire Capitol families and sell all their possessions just so I could bet their money on you, too."

He walks me over to the glass cylinder, and I step inside. He kisses my forehead and steps back. I hear the hydraulic lifters engaging, my heart thudding in my chest.

"Good luck, you flaming slut of Panem," Cinna grins, entirely for my benefit, so that the last good thing I see might be his blazing joy at having known someone like me. "Show them what you're made of. _Kick some ass!"_

I hold my head high as the cylinder begins to rise. My eyes burn, but my own sheer determination overpowers my urge to cry. I am in darkness for about fifteen seconds before I am pushed into open air.

All around me is bright sunlight, lush green grass, pine trees, flowers. These are my woods. I am home.

Cinna was right. I _can _fucking do this.

The voice of Claudius Templesmitsh booms from all directions: "Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!"

I smirk, banishing the last three days of fear and nerves and anxiety from my mind. Fuck that. These Starvelympics have got _nothing _on me.

I'm about to tear shit up.


	23. Chapter 23

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 23**

On my sixteenth birthday, Prim got me the complete first season of _Punk'd _on DVD. I have no idea how she could afford it, and I never asked. I cried like a baby and gave her a good warm hug for the first time in my whole life. I locked myself in my room for a week after, watching Ashton Kutcher make screaming, sobbing, sloppy fools of Capitol hacks galore. Watching these shitty celebrities squirm filled me with such hideous glee that I could almost forget that the Reaping was in less than two weeks and I had just signed off on twenty entries in exchange for grain and oil. Almost.

I was fifteen when kids at school starting following Gale and me around, calling us "Galeniss" and giggling their stupid heads off. Gale would drop my hand and go red, but I got some major kicks out of exacting my revenge on them later. Remember the time Gale and I went on that joyride and hit that Avox's pet cat? We'd been hoping to drop by the nice part of town and smash the mailboxes of kids who had been particularly obnoxious that week, including Peeta Mellark's older brother, who was ringleader of a posse of some of the shittiest preps you ever met. Just watching the domestic chaos unfold as merchants saw the damage and immediately blamed their own children was always satisfying after a long week of _"Gale and Katniss sitting in a tree F-U-C-K-I-N-G_." I was fourteen, thirteen.

I was twelve when Gale and I first started hunting in the woods. I stumbled into one of his snares and he laughed for hours and I screamed obscenities and tried to loosen the bloody wire from its death grip on my ankle. That day he brought me down to a stream to clean the wound, and we got to talking about the Ghetto and how shitty our school was and how all the kids could go screw themselves and how _Oh your father's dead? Mine too! _And how younger siblings were just the worst and how it kind of seemed like we should be best friends and did that sound like a good idea? We'd say treasonous things about the Capitol like how if we ever met President Snow we'd put an arrow right in his eye and slap him in the face and dumb stuff like that. This memory joins fifty-nine others, cloaking me in yet another layer of fearless determination. I was eleven, I was ten.

_Nine. Eight._

Claudius Templesmith continues his countdown as I survey the arena before me. A giant sideways traffic cone looms directly ahead, a massive orange-and-white-striped street marker surrounded by packs of various sizes, containing weapons and food and the like, the best ones at its heart. Only Careers and dumb fuckers run towards the Cone when the gong sounds. And do I look like a dumb fuck? No, my plan has always been to run directly for the woods. Find a tree, climb high, and pray that a giant flood wipes the rest of them out before breakfast tomorrow. 'Cause that could happen, right? Why can't this be the volcano year?

_Five. Four._

But only forty yards away, I see a sheath of arrows sticking out of a large orange backpack. A bow rests nearby. I think, _Oh, that could be for anybody_ until I see, across the back in giant permanent-marker scrawl, the words FUCK THE POLICE. That bag is mine, meant only for me. My feet itch to sprint over right now, but it would just be way too ironic if I stepped off the platform early and went out in a nasty blaze like that. Oh god, it'd be _Dadsplosion II: Girl on Fire._

_Three._

I can make it to that pack, though. My legs are made to sprint. Plus, the Careers will be too busy hacking up defenseless tweens to start in on their real targets. I scan the circle of tributes for Peeta, just curious to see where he stands in all this. I catch his gaze just a few places down. His sex hair blows in the light breeze and his eyes are wide with crazy fear. I think I see him shake his head at me. What is that supposed to—

_GONGGGGG!11!11!1_

What? FUCK, I've missed my chance. The other tributes are already running fullspeed towards the bounty and the siren call of hot blood just waiting to be spilt. And I'm still standing on the fucking platform. I can almost hear Haymitch's voice in my head, "Oh, real great start, you _dumb shit_."

So I run. I race forward, scooping up supplies in my path: A sheet of plastic, a loaf of bread, a copy of last month's _Tiger Beat_ with all the posters removed. I'll never reach that bow and arrow now so I round on a smaller backpack.

The boy from 9 grabs it just as I do. He's about to talk some trash at me, but blood runs down his chin instead. I pull the bag away and dart. I can't linger on the death surrounding me. Or I'll go crazy in the first fifteen minutes. I don't miss the knife in his back, though, thrown no doubt by the scary girl from District 2.

I assess the situation. Scary Girl has her eyes fixed on me. She's lifting a second throwing knife. She's probably hoping to lodge it in my forehead. So, calmly and quickly, I haul ass out of there. The dagger whizzes towards me, sticking in the backpack.

Thanks for the knife, sucker.

..

Have you ever run a marathon? Like a really long one. The kind where you cross the finish line all sweaty and gross and then you drop dead? Me neither, never will. (Because what's the point in running for hours just to prove you can? That's like gym class x1000). Once I pass into the woods, the sounds of the bloodbath are muted behind me. I keep a steady pace, jogging deeper into the forest, only speeding up when I hear the rustle of leaves or a faraway cry. My mind is a live wire, screaming with paranoia and replaying the song _Eye of the Tiger _every few minutes.

..

My name is practically synonymous with chaos, I think. I remember screaming with laughter, watching celebrities try and fail to deal with sudden anarchy on all those birthday DVDs. I recall tearing through the Ghetto in stolen cars, smashing mailboxes, and watching parents go off on their kids, my blood singing with adrenaline all the while. I still feel the satisfaction of hissing insults at the Capitol from the safety of the woods, cackling with Gale and getting away with a crime punishable by death. That was chaos. Peeta's wild eyes and the blade in the District 9 boy's back, this is chaos too. I wouldn't say I like it. I _hate _it, all of this. But the adrenaline rush is still there. My reflexes, my senses: a life of disorder and destruction has prepared me for this, just like those shitty battle-academies prepared the Careers back in District 2.

A cannon usually fires after each tribute is killed, but the bloodbath is too fast-paced and exciting for the television audience to keep track, so I only hear the death toll later that afternoon. One, two, three, four…

There are eleven in all. Was Peeta one of them? Is he lying in a red-stained grassy field with ten other corpses? There's this ancient saying about freedom that we always learn in history class. It's almost ironic how well it fits. _The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of twelve-year-olds._ Isn't that how it goes? That's what our textbooks say, at least.

I won't know for sure until the names are displayed in the sky tonight. My rush begins to fade and my worries over Peeta's fate play in my head like a mantra. Like that's children's games. _He loves me, he loves me not. _Peeta's dead, Peeta's not dead. That sounds terrible. And it doesn't matter.

I am in the Starvelympics and I represent the independent country of Badassia. And I'm going for the gold.


	24. Chapter 24

**The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic**

By alidazzles

**Chapter 24**

Peeta might be dead. Probably. But alright, it happens. It's better this way, definitely. He was a distraction, really. Someone to swap stories and scream along to Ke$ha songs with, locked in a hotel room closet while Effie and Haymitch tore the place apart looking for us after a particularly shitty training session. But that's it.

It's not like he was going to win, maybe this is best. That he'll get a nice section in the Greatest Hits reel before we all started getting catty and talking smack about each other's moms for the benefit of the cameras.

I don't know. Regardless of whether Peeta is dead or alive, _I_ am exhausted. I open my backpack, an unfortunate bright-orange bag with a demonic My Litte Pony stitched across the back. I wonder if this was meant for Scary Girl from 2, who can't be more than thirteen. My tongue feels dry and fuzzy like week-old couch candy, so I'm less than impressed to find crackers, dried beef jerky, a coil of wire, an empty bottle, and a pair of Ray Bans. I slip them on and I swear to god I look like the one straight member of One Direction. If he were slowly collecting grime and staggering around the woods waiting to die of starvation on reality TV.

The Gamemakers probably giggled like little bitches when they came up with the idea to send me a bone-dry water bottle. At least it's BPA free, because I value my health and the fucking environment, alright? But still, not ideal. This isn't like District 12, where something was always dripping or leaking if you were really thirsty. Here the only water source is the lake, back in the clearing where the Careers will no doubt be waiting to pick off anyone dumb enough to return. I'm about to draw the knife and plunge it into my beating heart (you think I'm kidding), when I remember the animals I've seen along the road. They have to drink, too…

I haul the pack over my shoulder and make my way further into the endless woods. My fingers itch for the crackers and beef jerky, but I'm not dumb as fuck, and can't touch them until I've found some water to wash them down. It's full dark by the time I'm ready to drop from exhaustion. No water in sight, just darkness and the kind of Murder Woods you'd find behind a middle school. I use the wire to set a few snares, so I won't have to hunt tomorrow, and find a tall tree to sleep in.

I've survived the first day, alright. I didn't fuck up in the first round and I've still got all my limbs and surely I'll find a drink tomorrow and I'm wearing some serious stunna shades. I actually feel like a competitor for once, rather than just a tribute. I can actually do this.

The first chords of the national anthem jerk me from my reverie. The death recap's coming up, when they'll show the names and faces of the slower, dumber tributes who stuck around for the bloodbath this morning. At home, they get a full recap of the killings with play-by-plays and shitty commentary from the guys over at FOX Sports, but in the arena we only get images of the fallen: old Myspace photos dug up from their personal files back home.

I see the girl from District 3, throwing her deuces up in her bathroom mirror. Then the boy from 4, a Career, shirtless and flexing. The blurry face of the boy from 5 with his tongue out. The list goes on.

I heard eleven cannons today. When I see the girl from District 10 doing a hideous duckface, I realize she's the eleventh. Which mean's Peeta's alive.

Well. Good. If he survives he can take care of Prim back home. Right. I don't feel happy and relieved but pissed and full of dread all at the same time. Or anything.

..

I've almost fallen into a light sleep when I hear a twig snapping, and momentarily lose my shit because _fuck._

But I'm not instantly shot. I haven't been found. I look below my perch and – get this – some basic bitch is down there _starting a fire. _

Well damn, princess! Didn't realize you were cold, just go ahead and start a giant fire in the _middle of the Hunger Games why don't you?!_

Seething silently is not easy. I manage well enough. I spend hours glaring below, watching this girl and wondering if I should get her with a rock or something. People are going to find us! How doesn't she get that?

And people do come. Several pair of feet approach quickly after the girl nods off by the little blaze. I hear them awaken her, her little scream as she realizes who's found her. I really _truly_ want to enjoy this girl getting what's coming to her, but I don't, because it's those Career assholes. Scary Girl from 2 will be somewhere among them. I'm shitting my pants.

"The fuck is this? Why no cannon?"

"Don't know, should've gone off right after we got her in the face."

"Unless you didn't—"

"I fucking did!"

"Yeah? Maybe you should go back and check."

"Maybe you should screw yourself with a fork."

"Maybe I should kill you."

"If you kill me I'll tell everyone about the time you and I—"

"Dumbass, you'd _be dead._"

"Hey, you two stop fucking each other for a second? _I'll _go check."

My breath catches. The first two voices are muddled and vague, but I know Peeta and his shitty defensively homophobic outbursts anywhere. He's with _them_. And unless they've kidnapped him or coerced him or this is the elaborate setup for the world's sickest ever episode of _Punk'd_, they've teamed up.

Peeta's a _Career_ now.

I vomit a little bit in my mouth.


End file.
